Apple picker An old classic comes to life on the iPhone under the banner of the most successful studio on our planet at the moment.
I don't know how many of you still remember the original Rayman, but hopefully enough. I personally still remember very vividly how my friends and I crushed Rayman on the N64 about ten years ago. It was hot in our house, because thanks to my generous parents, I was the only one in the class who owned an N64. I think this is also why I avoided being ridiculed by my classmates for being (in today's terminology) a "nerd". Either way, we had a lot of fun, so I was excited for this iPhone title.
At first glance, it can be seen that the authors tried to keep everything as it was as much as possible. OK. You turn on the first level, watch a few videos that take you into the story, and you can roll, fly and shoot! But hey, this is where the first question mark comes in. What the hell is wrong with the camera? Why doesn't he move, or rather so strangely? Well, nothing, it is certainly possible to look around by swiping your finger on the display. Yes it is, phew. Unfortunately, it doesn't work perfectly either. You can swipe as long as you want, as many times as you want, but you just won't look where you really want to look. Incredibly frustrating…
It's possible to look at everything "from Rayman's point of view", but even that doesn't help at all. In a game where you have to really look around to figure out what you want, what you need to pick up or where to jump, I consider this a cardinal flaw. As a friend of mine would say, this is a "fatal error". The road simply does not lead here. Unfortunately, the controls go hand in hand with this idiotic camera. When Gameloft brought Castle of Magic to the iPhone I was like wow! It really works. It is possible to port a hopscotch to an iPhone, and a very good one at that. But Rayman is completely in 3D, and that's obviously a huge problem for this game. On the display we find a more or less classic control layout. On the right side, action buttons for jumping and shooting, and on the lower left side, then a virtual joystick for movement. However, it somehow doesn't work.
Because it's almost impossible to get a disobedient Rayman to do what you want. Where you need to tread slowly so you don't fall into the water to the piranhas, your fighter will run, fall ignominiously into the water and off we go again. You repeat this several times, and so the fourth round became almost final for me, because the level of frustration was really unbearable. You know where to jump, you know how to jump there, but first you can't look in the right direction and then you run over your chosen jump spot, you run under it, or what do you know. After a long time, I wanted to pull out all the hair on my head (and that I have some!), but before that I threw my beloved Apple out the window.
Childish graphics, infantile story and absolutely horrible controls. It is said to be a rather long game with many levels. Someone let me know when you finish Rayman and I'll buy you a cold one. I would be very interested in how many levels there actually are in the game and, above all, how you managed to conquer them. Although the game looks quite childish, I dare to guess that a small child will get stuck in the tutorial. With a price of almost seven US dollars, Gameloft also did not score, and I can only recommend the game to die-hard fans of this hero who can survive perhaps the biggest disappointment in their gaming life.
Verdict: The inflated bubble quickly deflated and unfortunately we also quickly sobered up. This game is not worthy of the name Rayman.
Developer: Gameloft
Rating: 5.6 / 10
Price: $6.99
Link to iTunes: Rayman 2 - The Great Escape
