Rayman first made an appearance back in 1995, on PlayStation and Jaguar amongst others. The game, by French company Ubisoft, followed the strange large nosed character whose hands, feet and head don’t appear to be joined together. The game harked back to an earlier time still, being a side scrolling platform game, and its colourful graphics and glorious surreal backgrounds were an antidote in an industry where, in many quarters, the first, and often quite clumsy steps were being taken into t ... more >>

Rayman first made an appearance back in 1995, on PlayStation and Jaguar amongst others. The game, by French company Ubisoft, followed the strange large nosed character whose hands, feet and head don’t appear to be joined together. The game harked back to an earlier time still, being a side scrolling platform game, and its colourful graphics and glorious surreal backgrounds were an antidote in an industry where, in many quarters, the first, and often quite clumsy steps were being taken into three dimensions.

Rayman made a return in 2001, this time in a 3D action adventure game on N64, PS2, Dreamcast and pretty much everything else. His brief was to rescue creatures imprisoned on his home planet by space pirates.

Well, now Rayman is back again, this time on the Nintendo DS. The game is essentially a reworking of critically acclaimed Rayman 2: The Great Escape by Ubisoft’s Montreal studio. The pirates have enslaved his world and the versatile little chap must race and tussle his way around 45 beautiful and colourful 3D areas. He may have no arms or legs, but that won’t stop him running, skiing, swimming or even flying with his impressive helicopter quiff, through waterfalls, caves and pirate hideouts. And the player can use the lower DS screen to monitor the hocus-pocus-handed hero’s health and progress as he sets the world to rights. Bringing some extra platform action to the DS, if Mario’s not enough for you, then this is here too.
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