Lawrence.com

The original Rayman Raving Rabbids was one of the first titles to really embrace the Wii's propensity for minigames. Before WarioWare, EA Playground, Carnival Games, and countless others, Rayman featured its own assortment of motion-based wackiness. This new installment features more of the same, with the added bonus of Balance Board compatibility.

If you've played the original, you pretty much know the drill. TV Party offers up minigame after minigame, featuring you doing a variety of ridiculous motions with the Wii remote and nunchuk. Unfortunately, the motion-based controls aren't always intuitive and sometimes don't register correctly. For instance, one game requires you to either brush your teeth, pick your ears, shave, or put on deoderant using a mixture of motion control and button presses. Half the time, the game will misinterpret what you want to do. Even if it does work, it's difficult to recall the motion and button press at a moment's notice.

The Balance Board games are hit-or-miss. Some can be funny, such as the one that allows you to choose ridiculous exercises for your opponent to do. Others are fairly stale, involving sitting on the board and simply leaning to race. One of these games involves surfing through space, and it's surprisingly responsive. It makes me think there could be potential for some full games to utilize board control.

Overall, it simply feels like more of the same. There's only so much you can do with a collection of minigames and some basic motion controls, and it all feels worn out at this point with the Wii. The board controls help mix it up a bit, but there's still too many basic and annoying games. I hope the MotionPlus attachment breathes new life into the minigame genre, because it has quickly grown tiresome.

Graphics: 6.5

Sound: 6.0

First Play: 7.0

Replay Value: 5.0

Gameplay: 6.5

Overall: 6.8