Interview: Rayman Raving Rabbids 2

The Rabbids return to Wii and take their shot at world domination in Rayman Raving Rabbids 2! We recently had an opportunity to speak with Ubisoft's Loic Gounon, game coordinator for the newest Rayman game, to talk about the second Rabbid invasion.

Nintendo of Europe: What was it about the first Rabbids game that made it such a success?

Loic Gounon: The first thing is the way we started working on Wii. We knew Wii was coming. At first, we just had a Rayman project on our hands, called Rayman 4 incidentally. We started playing around with Wii, and Rayman was more or less chosen as the project to show what we could do on Wii. So this team - which is quite a senior team at Ubisoft - started working on Wii and playing around with the controls.

I think what did work in that game was the Rabbids, of course. People loved their humour and their craziness. I think the way we used the Wii Remote was pretty good compared to the competition, and that's why we're bringing a sequel this year.

NoE: What was one of the first things you were looking at to improve on for the sequel?

LG: Actually we knew there were a couple of issues with the first game. One of them was the accessibility of the navigation and interface. The game was pretty rushed at the end so in terms of menu, we weren't that satisfied. So for this game we started looking at Mario Kart, Wii Sports, Nintendo games with simple and easy-to-use interfaces to give us a reference in terms of our interface and menu.

We also didn't develop the multiplayer aspect that much last year. This game is really thought of as a multiplayer game so all mini-games are going to be playable with up to four players at the same time, whereas last year's game was a turn-based experience or single-player.

NoE: Can you play via Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection?

LG: No, but another thing we're looking at implementing is a score mode which is compatible with Wi-Fi Connection. So when you reach a certain score, for example 12,000 points, I can see that in France or in the world that I'm the best player at this game. So I just press a button and my score will automatically be submitted via Wi-Fi.

Also in this game, you'll be able to customise your own Rabbid and we have 70,000 possibilities of Rabbids and you're going to see the Rabbid you created next to your score.

NoE: Are the on-rails shooter games found in the first Rabbids title going to return as a part of this game?

LG: It is. We didn't just redo what we did last year. This time the challenge for the team was to bring a new art direction for those sequences so they'll be completely new. It's going to be very surprising for people.

NoE: What have you learned from playing Wii games from other companies as far as Wii Remote controls are concerned?

LG: When you start on a Wii game, you have to remember that you are on Wii. I think many developers did some ports on Wii that weren't that exciting. Now the way we're viewing Wii games is to really think how to use the controllers, and of concepts for Wii. I think for the next wave of Wii games, designers will have to be more creative and have more consistency in what they do.

NoE: Why do the Rabbids scream?

LG: Because they're crazy. The humour is one of the main aspects of the game. In the video game industry, there aren't many funny games. That's why we are trying more silly things and making people laugh.

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 for Wii will be in shops November this year.