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March 2, 2015

RABBIDS MONTH: Bottom 12 / Top 13 Minigames in Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party

Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party - Bottom 12 / Top 13 Minigames

Here it is, the final post of Rabbids Month! Boy was that a lot of work. Seriously, I think this is the biggest theme month I've done so far. Eight posts, an intro, eight lists (Seriously: I'll have discussed over 96 minigames this month!)... Truly a large project. I still hope to do something even bigger in the future... but we'll see in due time. Now that I'm done discussing February 2015, how about we end this with the final lists?

UK Box art for TV Party
An issue I quickly noticed with Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party is the lack of creativity in the minigames. Well, okay, there were also many “microgames”, but none of them actually has a title, and none of them can be accessed from a manu. On almost every imaginary channel of TV Party, there's a minigame that comes up more than once, except it's a different track/mountain/song/whatever. After calculating, I noticed that there was, in total, barely 25 actual “minigames” here, which means that I will be covering almost every single minigame in TV Party in this post. And, in fact, I'm still going to be talking about the 25th minigame: Instead of two lists containing 12 elements, I'll have a Bottom 12 and a Top 13. Because I'm way too nice. Though, as a result, you could just revert the order of the Bottom 12 list and you'd get a list of all the minigames in TV Party, from the one I despise most to the one I like most... But I'm gonna keep the formula intact. Also, please note I won't be making a Top 12 list in March. I'll review a WiiWare game, then jump straight to a movie review. Why? I had four posts with lists in February. I think I can take a short break from those, mmm'kay?

Okay, so... Are you ready for the tears and the anger? No worries; as usual, happiness will follow right after! As a wise Italian from Brooklyn once said, let's-a go!

BOTTOM 12 MINIGAMES IN RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS TV PARTY

12. Shake It TV (7)
Channel: Shake It TV (duh)
Rabbids, surprisingly, understand Just Dance.
If you simplify it for them.
I usually like dancing games such as Just Dance. I also kinda like the one in RRRTVP. Basically, dance moves come towards a stick figure and you have to do said dance moves, by moving the Wii remote and Nunchuk, at the same time the dance move hits the stick figure. Simple, you ask? Some of those moves are tricky. In fact, if it weren't for the trickier dance moves, which are difficult to do right, I would probably put these in the Top 13 list. Sadly, even when you do the right dance move, sometimes the Wii doesn't seem to detect it. And since your score multiplier increases with the number of dance moves you do correctly in a row, that means you're stuck having to rebuild your score multiplier all over again. That's pretty annoying. Oh, it's still a fun minigame, but I kinda get angry when that sort of thing happens to me. Another element that kinda helps this minigame is that you can play it in three difficulties: Novice, Normal and Expert, but if you want to beat the high score (15,000 points), you pretty much HAVE to play it on Expert.
By the way, the seven songs to dance to are Jungle Boogie, ABC, Soul Bossa Nova, Trick Me, Le Freak, Acceptable In The 80s, and Wake Me Up. They are not sung by Rabbids, either; it's the actual versions.

11. Prison Fake
Channel: Trash TV
Sorry for the low quality on this one.
Four Rabbids have to escape from a prison, and they find a way to escape using railroads... Through the entire minigame, you have to pump the Wii remote up and down. You can then switch lanes by pressing Left or Right on the horizontal Wii remote. There are many walls coming the Rabbids' way; most of them are closed down, the ones that aren't closed, and thus safe to get through, are lit up. You have to align your Rabbid with the lit holes in the walls to make it pass through and get points. Be careful, though, as the other Rabbids might try to block you! And, sadly, they'll frequently try to block you. That's rather annoying. It's a little defect, but it's still an annoying one. Well, at least this minigame is just a little annoying.

10. Rabzilla
Channel: Cult Movies
First-Person Godzilla sounds like the best game ever.
YOU ARE RABZILLA. You are in a city (a small-scale replica, about as tall as a Rabbid). Your fire breath can destroy buildings (well, they ARE made of carton, so...). You cause destruction all around, which is why (remote-controlled) tanks and helicopters are coming to shoot you. You lose points when they hit you. Your task is to destroy buildings. A building that goes down a little gives 100 points, a building that gets completely destroyed gives 1,000 points. Remember to shoot the tanks and helicopters, and sometimes the remote control-holding Rabbids too! I don't like this minigame too much, because the fire jet is very imprecise, some buildings get very hard to hit once they're almost down, and after a while there are too many tanks and helicopters distracting you from destroying buildings.

9. Rabbid Wrestling
Channel: X-TRM Sports
Incoming mass of fat and lipids!
Four hulking wrestlers are standing around a wrestling ring. Some will jump very high and then come down. If a Rabbid gets crushed under one of them, he's flattened and leaves the ring. As the minigame progresses, more wrestlers jump at once, making it harder to avoid them. Oh, and the annoying part? The Rabbids outside of the ring can electrocute you to stop you from moving, and thus making you easier to smash. In fact, that's the reason I don't like this minigame. When I lose, it's because of the Rabbids outside of the ring, who decide I don't deserve victory. Eh. It's still a funny minigame, I guess.

8. Loser Sweepstakes
Channel: Macho TV
Being good isn't enough to win, here.
First, you select a Rabbid on the race track; then, you have to shake the Wii remote and Nunchuk in rhythm with the Rabbid. Basically, you have to pick which Rabbid you think will lose the race, and then have your Rabbid reach the finish line first. If you win the race, you get points; if you didn't pick correctly the one in last place, you lose a few points. As I tried, if you do win all three races but never correctly guess which Rabbid will finish last, you won't get 15,000 points. That's pretty damn annoying. I would like to blame my bad luck, and I kinda do, but I'm also kinda thankful that this minigame isn't all just luck.

7. Shoplifting
Channel: The Raving Channel
Yeah, those big white things are all bunches of Rabbids.
Rabbids on floating vacuum cleaners! Your job here is to pick up as many Rabbids as possible thanks to your vacuum cleaner. You shake the Wii remote to go up and use the pad on the Nunchuk to go left or right. Sounds simple? Oh, but when you smash into the other Rabbids on their vacuum cleaners, you lose a few Rabbids! Sure, so do they, but still, that's pretty annoying. In fact, since all the Rabbids hang on to your vacuum cleaner, you become a larger and larger mass each time you pick up Rabbids, and thus it becomes easier for the others to hit you. Really not a fan of this minigame...

6. The Garden of Weeden
Channel: Trash TV
You little moron, you're bringing Audrey II into existence!
You have to spread weed-killer all over the place, because an idiotic Rabbid keeps pouring fertilizer... and the plants that are growing don't seem too nice. I'm getting some Little Shop of Horrors vibes from them, in fact... This minigame works similarly to Rabzilla: Just aim by pointing left or right, up or down, with the Wii remote. However, what makes this minigame more annoying is that there's that damn Rabbid who keeps on fertilizing those plants, even if they're probably gonna eat him once the minigame ends. And of course, that damn Rabbid gets in your way, especially at the end, where the plants grow faster, and too many of them grow at once. It's a very annoying minigame, and I really don't enjoy playing it.

5. Megaballs (4)
Channel: The Raving Channel
Rabbids believe that the prize is won by the lottery ball.
One of the most pointless minigames ever, AND of course there's FOUR of it! Urgh. Your Rabbid, in a lottery ball-shaped costume, has to jump through a level with white orbs. You control the Rabbid with the analog stick on the Nunchuk, and you flick the Wii remote downwards quickly to make the Rabbid jump. You have to collect as many white orbs as possible. Make sure to avoid the many dangerous things that will get in your way, because you'll lose part of your score if you get hit. Also, sometimes you'll be pit against other Rabbids in lottery balls, and you have to fight to collect as many white orbs as possible. At the end, you and 3 other Rabbids fight to get to the level's exit. Those minigames are needlessly long and tedious, and not even funny for the most part. I've grown to hate them... but there's even worse.

4. Rabbidass
Channel: X-TRM Sports
Remember that TV show with the advancing wall? And the
players had to take the shape of the hole in it? Imagine
that while freefalling from space. Without a parachute.
A Rabbid in space goes for a freefall into a pile of mud. As he falls, he has to go through cartons depicting a shape. You have to draw the “shape” with the Wii remote, by pressing A and then moving it. Well, actually, you don't draw the shape, you make a line similar to the shape (like a horizontal line for horizontal holes, vertical lines for vertical holes, etc.) It gets faster and faster as the minigame progresses, so much that after a while you won't be able to draw the lines fast enough. What's more, since drawing with the Wii remote is extremely imprecise, you'll have problems drawing the more complicated shapes (like a U or an L), and the game might not recognize the shape you've drawn. The result is an unnerving minigame that doesn't work well enough, and a rather displeasing experience in the end. (But bonus points for the silhouette left by the Rabbid when he hits the mud; it's actually Rayman's! Oh, and also, they got away with saying “ass” in an E10-rated game.)

3. Star Worse
Channel: Cult Movies
I hope you like having satellites in your face.
Imagine Rabbidass TIMES TWO. You still have to draw lines, but this time you need to draw even faster. Why? Because lots of asteroids and satellites are coming towards you! Thankfully, when you draw a line that is on more than one object coming towards you, all the objects with that line on them are destroyed... but even then, you have to be even faster because a lot of objects are coming at once, and near the end, since the lines to draw get more complicated, you probably won't be able to keep up. And once again, the game will frequently fail to recognize what you've drawn. So yeah, a bad minigame, I really don't like it, but there's even worse...

2. Space Travel (3)
Channel: Macho TV
Well, it IS pretty, I guess.
But the mechanics are just too annoying.
A Rabbid is sent into space on a skateboard. He then has to travel in space and avoid the obstacles. You steer the Rabbid by moving the Wii remote up or down, left or right. You have to go through the rings to get points. Sometimes you'll reach a fork and you can choose either the easy path or the hard path (Hint: The hard path gives more points if you don't get hit at all). And then there are some obstacles that are almost impossible to friggin' avoid, and then the Rabbid gets a boost by farting, so much that by the end it stops being funny... Also, at the end, your score gets a boost depending on how much time you took to reach the end (and since you lose speed when hitting stuff, you take more time to finish), and then the Rabbid crashes onto a planet. Forgettable, rather annoying minigame (but the last one of the three is the worst).... but the metal music that plays during this minigame is pretty damn awesome.

1. Pimp My Rabbid
Channel: Macho TV
He's watching your actions, because he knows that soon,
you'll make him look completely ridiculous.
Because of this minigame, we can't dress up our Rabbids! And why? Because of a stupid, awful minigame, that's why! You are given indications: Your Rabbid must be _____ and _____, but not _____. And then you have to dress up the Rabbid so that he'll fit the criteria. The problem is that judging what each item represents is completely subjective, so something that may look silly to you may not seem silly to someone else, or vice versa, and as a result you are pretty much NEVER certain that what you're putting on your Rabbid will correspond to the criteria. This minigame is terrible, just awful. And of course, when you start playing the game, you don't have enough objects unlocked to play this game, so at first it's literally impossible to beat this game. I would have preferred customizable Rabbids that can be used through the whole game rather than this shitty minigame. Sure, it can be funny because your Rabbid can look completely ridiculous, and the others reacting to your Rabbid's look can also be funny, but damn, this is just too poorly implemented and lame.

And now, the best!

TOP 13 MINIGAMES IN RAYMAN RAVING RABBIDS TV PARTY

13. S.O.S. Red Planet I / II
Channel: Cult Movies
There is no reason to yodel on Mars!
This one and the next two are the Bunny Hunt minigames for TV Party. They're rather particular, too: A scene is being filmed with Rabbids in costumes, and the director, another Rabbid, wants everything to go according to plan... but then we see Rabbids who appear on the screen, wearing silly costumes. They have no reason to be in the scene, so the director gets mad. Your job is to shoot the Rabbids who don't fit in the scene. They're all dressed the same. But you need to be careful, though, not to hit any of the actual actors! In S.O.S. Red Planet, we follow the tale of two Rabbids visiting Mars and encountering some odd creatures... And hordes of Rabbids dressed like alpine yodelers! CUT!

12. Outofcontrollables
Channel: Cult Movies
DinoRabbid! You're asked on the set for Rabzilla!
A story about Rabbids trying to get control of a bar, a story of shady deals and mafiosi.... It would all be fine and good if only the shots weren't constantly ruined by Rabbids dressed as dinosaurs! CUT! As is the case with S.O.S. Red Planet, you have to shoot by aiming at the screen and pressing B, and reloading every once in a while. If you hit Rabbids without missing, your score builds up. My main problem with this is that it's very easy to mess up, considering you're basically playing over cutscenes that act like a movie, so the scene can cut suddenly, just as you were about to hit a bunny. Also, due to the scenes, some Rabbids may be moving pretty fast, or be a little far from the player, and thus harder to hit... But overall, the Bunny Hunt minigames in RRRTVP are pretty fun.

11. Night of the Zombiz / Dawn of the Rabbids
Channel: Cult Movies
I don't get it. Isn't a zombie apocalypse the absolute worst
time for a chicken?
In this one, a young couple of Rabbids is enjoying some ice cream near a graveyard. Zombie Rabbids come out from the ground, and attack them. In the sequel, they hide in an abandoned diner... Wait a second, why are all these Rabbids disguised as chickens? CUT! A final thing about the Bunny Hunt in RRRTVP is that each minigame is split in three parts, in which you always have to hit a minimum number of Rabbids around the place. If you hit much more than the required amount, you get more points at the end of a scene. And of course, the three stories in he Bunny Hunt minigames end with a shocking twist! Well, shocking for us, but for Rabbids it all makes perfect sense. So yeah, I have more positive to say about those than I have anything negative to say, so I guess that's pretty neat.

10. Tractor Races (3)
Channel: Trash TV
You're literally going to mow down your opponents!
Your Rabbid is riding a tractor and racing against other tractor-riding bunnies! You hold the Wiimote horizontally, you speed up with the 2 button, go left or right by tilting the Wii remote, and press A in turns to fill up a boost bar. When your Rabbid comes into contact with one of the opponents, it sends them flying. BAM! When the boost bar is moderately full, you can pull down the Wiimote to activate the boost, which will let your Rabbid go up a few places, hopefully. It's a very fun minigame, which takes place on three different race tracks, though all of them take place on farms. It's quite enjoyable, and I seriously don't mind that this one shows up more than once.

9. Downhill Yak-Riding (4)
Channel: X-TRM Sports
Nobody asked the mountain yak's opinion, though...
A Rabbid riding on the belly of a deer, driving downhill, racing. You can play this game with the Wii Balance Board, which is pretty fun, but it works also very well without it, just by turning the Wii remote and Nunchuk one side or the other. To get points, you have to pass between poles, and you get more points if you don't miss any set of poles while you're sliding down the slope. Sometimes the Rabbid – and the deer – will jump and, while in mid-air, you'll have to do some acrobatic tricks (by moving the Wii remote and Nunchuk in some way). I like all of the minigame... except the acrobatics part, because the game sometimes won't record correctly what I do with the remotes. However, everything else in this minigame works pretty well, so it's just a minor defect. Definitely fun. I wished there were more original minigames rather than just repeats, but at least they managed to make the repeats somewhat enjoyable.

8. Fashion Victim
Channel: Trash TV
Strike a pose for the cameras, don't spit in their faces,
because paparazzi will jump on a story like this!
At least two Rabbids are walking on a red carpet. Your Rabbid runs when you shake the Wii remote and Nunchuk quickly. When photographs and cameras appear at the bottom of the screen, you have to stop; your Rabbid will strike a pose. Once the photographs are gone, your bunny can keep on running. There's always at least one other Rabbid playing, CPU or human, so this is kind of a race, actually. The first Rabbid who reaches the finish line wins! ...And then falls in the water. A simple-yet-fun minigame, which I can play very often, and not get bored. Though it would have been funny to see the Rabbids walk down the red carpet dressed with the stuff you unlocked... you know, custom Rabbids... but goddammit, Pimp My Rabbid ruined this minigame too!

7. Groove On (7)
Channel: Groove On (duh)
The music minigames. The Rabbids aren't on a stage, but they're playing on instruments. No, not playing instruments: Playing ON instruments. The keyboardist Rabbid stands on his keyboard and air-keyboards his parts, the drummer Rabbid air-drums his parts, the guitarist, well, you get the point. As I said in the review of TV Party, I dislike how the Rabbids sing, this time around: They just don't sound like the Rabbids sounded in the other two games, with their cute voices. But aside from that, I'd say the songs are decent and fun, and they're pretty enjoyable. But one could say it's even easier than the ones in the other two Wii games I reviewed in February... oh well.
The songs: Ladies Night, Toxic, You Know I'm No Good, Heaven Must Be Missing An Angel, Born To Be Wild, Another One Bites The Dust and Open Book.

Here listen to the difference between these two songs! The first is from RRR2Wii, the second is from RRRTVP.



THIS DOES NOT SOUND LIKE RABBIDS.

6. Missfit
Channel: X-TRM Sports
This guy would put the Comic Book Guy to shame.
A Rabbid doesn't understand what it means to exercise and gain muscle, so a fat man shows us. There are nine different exercises, and you'll do all of them. The exercises are chosen at random, though. You have to re-do what the fat man does, except with the Wii remote and the Nunchuk. Examples include shaking your hips (with your hands and remotes on them), shaking the remotes horizontally up and down like an alligator's jaw, or twisting them near your mouth. Oh, and there are also three exercises during which you must stand completely still, the remotes must not move at all. I don't like those, but the others are pretty fun. That a short-legged, obese man is showing them to us just adds to the absurdity of the situation. All in all, an enjoyable minigame.

5. American Choppy
Channel: Macho TV
His butt is getting dragged on the ground!
That must hurt.
I first disliked that one, until I learned how to start the right way. First off, you hold the remote like bike handles, and you twist the Wii remote in your right hand like you're giving gas to a motorbike. But you need to have good timing when doing that, because you must give just enough gas, and not too much! After which, if you did it right, you get a boost. The Rabbid will go, with his butt rubbing on the asphalt (for some reason), and your next job is to bend left or right to have the Rabbidcycle go either direction and avoid the problematic parts of the road (Gosh, they really need to repair that street; it looks like the ones in Quebec!). At the end of the minigame, you have to press Z and B at once to brake. It seems like a complicated minigame, and it is, but it's totally fun. The gameplay changes and makes you do things that are in no other minigame in TVParty. Definitely an enjoyable one. For bonus points, the Rabbid's ass is shining when the motorbike stops. He shined his bottom!

4. Megaclicker
Channel: ???????? (Final Story Mode Minigame)
At the end of the Story Mode, you get this gem. It can be summed up as Rayman going nuts and flipping the channels quickly, but never getting something that is NOT the Rabbids. Megaclicker is made of most, if not all of the adverts you can play in the game, and you have to do them very fast. Thankfully, it's almost always the same thing; either a quick flick of the remote, or shaking it for a bit. You have a number of “lives”. Once you lose them all, the minigame ends (And at some point, the microgames pass by too fast for humans anyway). It's a great look back on the microgames you didn't pay much attention to, because they weren't the main draw. And thanks to Megaclicker, you can enjoy the microgames as their own separate minigame! (And yet you never have to click in this minigame...)

3. Very Rabbid Show
Channel: The Raving Channel
Guests fight for the microphone and sing loudly!
Tonight, on Bunny Springer!
AKA Rabbids don't understand talk shows. Indeed, they believe that it's a game of It, in which they first have to go get the microphone, and then the others must attack the one holding the microphone. During a blackout... Anyway, you have to aim a light around the room until you find the microphone, and then go pick it up. Afterwards, you need to try and avoid the other Rabbids as long as possible, since they're gonna attack you and send the microphone flying to another place in the room. The obstacles in the room are placed in a way that you'll probably need to do this a couple times in order to score over 15,000 points, but it's not too big of a deal. Oh, also, the Rabbid holding the microphone believes itself at Rabbidican Idol and keeps singing loudly. Hilarious. A great minigame.

2. B.R.U.S.H.
Channel: Trash TV
They stop looking happy when you screw up... It's almost
sad. But it's still too funny.
Brush your teeth, by shaking the Wiimote up and down! Clean your ears, by shaking it left and right! Shave your chin, by pressing A and spinning the remote! Spray some deodorant, by pressing B and spinning the remote! That's four basic orders, and the Rabbids in the army have to follow their general's orders, even in the bathroom! Basically, you need to remember which tool does what, and do the right movement, or your Rabbid is gonna get messed up, like getting ear wax on its teeth, deodorant in its ear, or shaving its armpit! This is one of the funniest Rabbids minigames I've seen, just based on how messed up the Rabbids can get if you screw up. Ah, the horrors of war...

1. Flippin' Burgers
Channel: The Raving Channel
Come on! Cook those flippin' burgers!
Oh wait,k that's not how they meant it...
Three channels flip very quickly: A cooking show, a tennis match and a documentary about manatees. And before you know it, some Rabbid finds himself playing tennis with steaks to feed manatees. No, really. Your job is to shake up a steak in the pan to unfreeze it, then cook it till it's hot, but not till they're burnt, then toss them up and use the pan as a tennis racquet to send the steaks into the manatee's mouth. How much sense does that make? Oh, the hu-manatee! Honestly, that concept is just great. And the minigame is a lot of fun, too: If you cooked the steak perfectly, you get a lot of points! That requires just the right balance. Also, you don't have to aim for the manatee's mouth, but you do have to act like you're throwing something. When I think Raving Rabbids, that's what I'm thinking of: Absurdity, hilarity, great gameplay, and fun! Flippin' Burgers might not be THE best minigame I've seen from the Raving Rabbids this month, but it's definitely part of the Top 4.


So yeah, this was the final list for Rabbids Month. Phew, this was a HUGE month! A ton of work! Do you have any idea how many words I wrote for February? ...I'm placing a bet on over 25,000. Good Heavens, that is HUGE. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Rabbids Month. It was a very fun thing to write for me, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, too. Things will go back to normal in March: I'll be reviewing a WiiWare game, a video game movie, and possibly a Nintendo DS game (I won't make a Top 12, though, because I've done enough of those this month, am I right?), and then there will be another theme month. If you've read some of my posts since the beginning of 2015, you're probably going to guess what the theme month will be. If you can't guess, you'll find out with everyone else, in April! ...Or perhaps before that, since I tend to reveal my future reviews ahead of time... Okay, see ya!

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