XboxGameZone.co.uk

The rabbids are coming. Having burst free from the constraints of appearing in numerous Rayman titles and itching at the chance to appear in peoples front room via Xbox Kinect, these pesky rabbids are well and truly alive. This is their chance to shine through on a platform that is perfectly suited to their mini-game extravaganza gaming style. With numerous party games already on Kinect in time for this Christmas it appears that the rabbids are not only fighting to top the sales charts, but also fighting for world domination.

Starting as it means to go on with a hilarious cut scene; deep below the surface the rabbids are attempting to clone themselves. Bubbling potions, mad scientists and a cow is never going to be a good combination. Multiplying to never ending numbers, the rabbids have burst out from below our streets and quite literally into your front room. It almost takes you by surprise the first time the camera pans across a building and in the window is you; standing there in hopefully more than your pants while a crazy rabbid crashes through and lands next to you. A quick smack around the more than willing rabbids head and it’s off into the game menus.

Using augmented reality it’s now possible to have a virtual rabbid walk around your front room with you. In fact, UbiSoft do very well by using the Kinect technology to have a virtual rabbid navigate your front room, picking out furniture and people very well. You can give your virtual rabbid a new wardrobe; kit him or her out in funky glasses, have them follow health and safety laws with a football helmet, or drop a virtual cow onto their heads. In fact dropping the cow onto your rabbids head never seems to get boring. In the ‘My Rabbid’ mode the Kinect sensor works well to pick out others in the room as well, my first experience of this was one of my children walked into the room and spotted them self on camera. What else would a small child with a rabbid in front of them do? A double take followed by proceeding to deliver a swift kick of course, sending my virtual rabbid face first into the screen. Hilarious stuff.

With your fully pimped up rabbid being forced to endure a good kicking around your front room as you go for a 50 hit combo on his head, chuckling away, you realise how hard the achievement for not hitting him for two minutes is going to be, its just far too tempting.

After giving your rabbid some time off for good behaviour it’s onto the main quest of the game, except there isn’t actually one. Alive and Kicking has a main option aptly named ‘Quick Games’, no storyline to hold it all together and no staggered progression through the 35+ mini games on offer. That introduction, no matter how funny, will have to do. The rabbids are here and essentially just want you to play and give them a good kicking in a great many different games.

While there is a generous amount of games of offer, there’s only a small amount of games that are on the right side of enjoyable, and those are best played with 2 players. Single player has few highlights however, like playing virtual air guitar in ‘Guitar Zero’. With the focus on your front room a virtual guitar is thrust into your hands as you rock out, Guitar Hero style. 3 coloured notes on the fret board are tracked with one hand while you strum with the other as the notes fall down your screen. The Kinect tracking works very well for this game, especially in single player. Another highlight is swinging a virtual bogey from your nose with a rabbid stuck to the other end, before propelling it out the window and into the street, only for the poor rabbid to be kicked back by a random American footballer. Why on earth is this event not in the 2012 Olympics? I’m sure my 650-metre launch would be enough to secure a gold medal.

Throw another person into the mix and things get a lot more enjoyable. ‘Whack A Rabbid’ sees virtual rabbids popping out of your floor ready for stamping under your feet. Other similar games see you dodging spotlights and objects thrown at you in your front room, or performing a little dance before security guards finish their coffee and turn around. Points will be dropped if you have not cleared the screen before they glance over at you. Stepping away from your front room, Alive and Kicking will take you into a bathroom to create silhouette shapes behind a shower curtain, or have you swimming up-stream like a salmon. All these games can of course be tackled in single player, but then that defeats the object of this game.

Should you throw another two players into the mix though, things become a little bit messy. I’ve now played many Kinect games that work very well in two-player mode, however I’m yet to play one that works well with 4 people on screen at once and in this instance, Alive and Kicking is no exception. Even in spacious front rooms it’s still a struggle to detect and separate 4 moving bodies. The only game that does work is the afore-mentioned security guard game, and that only requires you to be seen or hidden, not properly tracked.

For every good game on the disc there is another from the opposite end of the spectrum to let it down. Using your hands as glove puppets to avoid the crosshairs has never worked for me yet. Running on the spot is not something I would call an interesting mini-game and the different games all requiring you to lick or wipe something from a rabbids face seem very much like repetitive stocking fillers. This often leads to a distinct sense of dread, or a moan as the next cut-scene is taking place in the underground vault, knowing that the next game could be a mental challenge brings out many a sigh. Opened up cubes with different answers on the screen, or counting the number of sheep moving on screen seem very tedious and not fitting with the games styling. Asking you to simply raise your hand and guess the correct answer is a far cry from fending off hungry rabbids while dressed as hot-dog man.

You can simply choose the games you want to play if you wish to avoid the duds, even unlocking harder difficulties as you progress from the games list, but as this game is most likely to be played in a party environment the randomise option will most likely be used. Selecting single player, or variations of multiplayer, the game will continue to churn out mini game, after mini game for you.  For the first time through on many games you will often find yourself completely baffled as what you have to do. A tutorial every time would be painful, yet a simple ‘skip tutorial’ would be extremely helpful. Many games are self-explanatory; swing something round, head-butt a rabbid; many others though, need a failed attempt to bring realisation as to what you were supposed to be doing. Not that much of a problem when playing solo, an unwelcome distraction when the party is in full swing.

For those who have an insane amount of house space and enough friends to fill it there is an option to start party mode. Requiring at least 3 people and a maximum of 16, everyone can take part in mini game competitions. Forfeit mode means that failed challenges will require an embarrassing forfeit to be completed with other players voting on the completion, so no cheating when asked to hula-hoop in the front window. Kitty mode adds a little bit of strategy; players can bank their winnings after each successful round or let the pot build up until they bank, or fail and lose the whole lot. Think of it as The Weakest Link meets Raving Rabbids, almost. For the older generation there is a drinking game on the disc as well; spin the wheel and either complete the level yourself, square off against another, or team up. Failure will result in a life lost and the requirement to knock back a drink. Substitute the in-game carrot juice for some vodka jellies and you will have a room full of wobbly legs.

Looking through the slick menus for further entertainment however, will lead only to disappointment. Once the novelty of your virtual rabbid pet has worn off and you have purchased as many items as you can afford with your in game currency, there is little reason to go back to this; other than to show-off the Kinect features to new guests. This leaves you with only the mini-games to play through and with only a handful of good games on there the replay value for a single player is very limited.

Where Alive and Kicking really shines is in the multiplayer component. Either with a house full of friends on a weekend, or jumping around like a lunatic on a school night with the kids is where you will find the most enjoyment in this game. The good games are very good; the humour is top notch and some of the games border just on the right side of ridiculous. In two player mode the Kinect sensor does a very good job of picking you up and relaying your actions on screen. It is extremely easy to jump into this game and enjoy yourself within seconds.

The main trouble with Rabbids is the lack of enjoyable games on offer. Although 35+ mini games seems quite a lot, with many lasting under a minute and some even lasting just a few seconds, they can become very repetitive very quickly. Throw in many pointless mental challenges and a variety of sub-standard games then 35+ suddenly seem a very low amount.

Rabbids Alive and Kicking has the potential to be a very good party game for Kinect. All the basic building blocks are there. The use of Augmented Reality to actually make you feel like you are part of the game and fill your front room full of hyperactive rabbids and virtual guitars is simplistic good fun. This has by far and away some of the craziest and most enjoyable party games I have played for Kinect. The big disappointment is the small amount of good games on offer. Stripped down of all the mental challenges and duds there are only around 9 or 10 decent enjoyable games on offer. While extremely good fun, it’s just a crying shame there’s not more on offer to add the much-needed enjoyable variety to this game.