Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc Member Review for the PS2

Now With Canned Goods

The limbless hero is back! He first escaped Mr. Dark, then counter-striked Admiral Razorbeard! Now he has a new problem, it's smaller but there's more of them! Hoodlums!

So what are Hoodlums? Well you remember the yellow and red lums from Rayman 2? Hoodlums are evil black lums that are obviously...bad in social life, and not so great to have a beer with. Andre is the leader of these black lums, and to put the whole plot in a petri dish...Andre basically wants to take over the world.

You start the game with Rayman having a nap, just chilling with the 'shrooms (as we all should be doing har de har), but along the way Andre, an evil dark lum (or "hoodlum" as u prefer) comes along and causes havoc in the tutorial forest. After a while, you learn Andre is after the Heart of the World. In a nutshell, Andre gets accidently swallowed by Globox, a good friend of Rayman, and we are all then on a quest to try and get that evil bugger out of our blue friend as soon as possible!

The plot elaborates from there, and eventually the whole world is at stake! Rayman to the rescue once again!

The best part of this game is the gameplay! It's a pont system in simple words. And the aim is to gain as many points as possible, via collectable gems, power-ups, or by defeating enemies. Mix them all together will gather combos for even more points. It's a very tough cookie to crack in order to get a legitimate score! The great feat of this game is that when you are finished, you can gather a code and compare your score to others online. So the replayability is superb. A lot of incentive to gather that extra 10 points that will maybe raise you a few hundred places up the leaderboard.

There are also new power-ups! Hoodlum detergent! No real reason is given for why these little can-sized miracles are placed around the Rayman world, but they are helpful to our limbless friend either way! These 5 new power-ups can be found by finding these cans: one is twister punch, another is power punch, then hanging punch, rocket punch, and helicopter. All are put together in all levels to create great innovation and thinking for all levels and scenarios that you will encounter throughout the game. It can be quite a hard thought process in terms of how to get the largest point amount of points. But in order to just complete the level, the task is simple.

The grpahics of this game are fantastic to look at. A new company has been introduced (I dont know the name), and it looks better than any other Rayman that has come to screen. And you can tell. When you first look at it, the colours are more vivid than before, plus the movement and framerate appears much smoother then previous Rayman titles.

Sound and effects are great to hear. A pleasure for the ears! The teensies are back, along with other familiar characters and musicians that will make your smile with complete glee. Let's face it, it's pretty much a kids computer game. But there's no shame in enjoying all the antic that are thrown towards an audience of a kid's level....well I'm certainly not ashamed of it!

I personally love this game! Its my favourite of the whole Rayman series because of the online replayablitly, and the new unique point system and gameplay. Plus it's still a fun game to play, ANd it makes you laugh. So if you feel the need to get a little stress of your head and go nuts, buy this game! I suggest you do this, whether you have limbs or not!