Rayman

First of all I would like to apologize to everyone for not submitting the Press Play on Tape and Open Your Ears episodes in time. This happened due to technical problems and a general lack of time in recent days. Still, we're back now, and our columns are back with us.

Rayman was created by Michel Ancel in 1992. Rayman is a limbless character that is a star of one of the best 2D platformers of all times. Rayman also was the main star of two 3D platformers. The first of the two was one of the best in its genre just like its 2D predecessor. The third one wasn’t that good, but was still a solid and very fun platformer. Rayman is the reason why UbiSoft is such a powerful company today.

This time however I will focus on the first game.

The game was released in 1995 for the ill-fated Atari Jaguar and MS-DOS and later converted to Playstation and Saturn.

The plot is extremely ridiculous, but we need to bear in mind that it’s a platform game from the mid 90’s of the previous century.
The people of Rayman’s world live in harmony with nature and themselves. They are protected by the great Protoon that watches over the world. One day some hooded bastard (called…now brace yourselves – Mr. Dark) steels the great Protoon and beats up Betilla the fairy when she tries to stop him. The Electroons that were gravitating around the great Protoon scatter around the land and are captured by strange, hostile creatures.
It so happens that only our main protagonist can collect them all, get the Protoon back and bring the balance to the world once again.

Sweet Lord! Thankfully you don’t need an elaborate plot to have fun with a platform game.

Rayman is a typical scrolling platformer, but the level design (both technical and artistic) is so well done, that it’s incredibly fun to run around and free the Electroons from their cages. However, you won’t be able to get to all the cages until you acquire the appropriate powers, which include, for example “shooting” Rayman’s fist and the series and character’s trademark move – the helicopter – where our limbless hero uses his hair to glide over short distances.

The game requires you to complete five worlds (a few dozen levels) and rescue all the Electroons before you’ll be able to face the final boss. You will have to do some backtracking to achieve that, but it’s not too daunting. This all makes the game to be rather lengthy and demanding, and sometimes a bit frustrating. Still, games during that period were mostly more difficult that what we have now (excluding High Mile Club on Veteran in Call of Duty 4 - damn you Infinity Ward).

The game is really beautiful, even for today’s standards. The backgrounds are multilayered and detailed and characters fantastically designed and animated. Especially our hero who features a set of fluid animations that will crack you up on occasions (the grimace animation is just hilarious).

Unfortunately the sound didn’t age as gracefully as the graphics and can be a bit annoying.

A few years back the game was converted to the Gameboy Advance and recently it was released on the European Playstation Network. I encourage anyone with a PS3 to give the game a try, because it’s ridiculously cheap and looks really good upscaled to HD.

Since I couldn't find proper images from the game I strongly encourage you to check them out on MobyGames.