I must preface this review with two things. First is that I am a fan of the Rabbids, a humorous and continued spin-off of Rayman that have come to be their own series. Second is that this game has similarities to Angry Birds Space. I am unsure of the similarities between the games as I only became aware when a friend said that the game looked like a knock-off of Angry Birds Space. In the future I will play that and perhaps change this review accordingly. However, this review is of Rabbids Big Band as a game in and of itself.
The game is nonsensical. The Rabbids games are usually based on some silly premise in order to have gameplay that is different. I'm still not sure what genre I would call this game. It's action in that it is based on timing and reflex. But at the same time it is strategic in that completing challenges requires some planning, trial and error.
The game is setup into worlds (as I will call them), of which each is composed of 15 missions on the same map. The game is called Big Bang as it takes place in space. In each world there is an assortment of objects. The primary objects are planets that have visible gravitational fields. The other objects do various things - passing a UFO gives you a speed boost, there are moon-like objects that have reverse-gravity, and cannons that shoot your Rabbid in various directions, among others.
The gameplay is simple yet challenging. I believe this is where the game works so well. You really only do two things. The first is press a direction to begin - one Rabbid with a jet-pack object is whacked by another Rabbid with a random object. With this, the Rabbid leaves the starting planet and begins the orbit in the direction you chose. From this point, the game is entirely controlled by pressing/pressing and holding on the screen to activate the Rabbid's jet-pack. Despite the simplicity of the game being more or less activating the jet-pack, the challenge is incredible at times and therefore quite rewarding.
The depth comes from the fact that the Rabbid stays in movement by being pulled by gravity - whatever object you are closest to (relative to its gravity) pulls you towards it. If you are headed straight towards a planet, you will land/crash. However, given that you begin at an angle somewhat parallel to the planet's surface, the sideways movement means your Rabbid circles the planet.
The jetpack is how you control your Rabbids movement after the initial launch. The fuel is limited, so managing movement is a challenge. There are fuel orbs orbiting planets, and the randomness of these can often determine your outcome. Getting just enough fuel orbs is tough- if you go out of your way for them you may burn more fuel than they are worth. Luckily restarting a mission changes fuel orbs position, so for particularly difficult missions you can retry till you can grab a few orbs early.
The real challenge of the jet-pack is that it pushes your Rabbid in the direction of its head. The jet-pack faces the opposite way so this simple Newtonian principle fuels the game. So how do you control the direction? Timing. This game impressed me with its need to get perfect timing. After launch, your Rabbid continually spins. It can spin clockwise or counter-clockwise, and when the planet you are orbiting changes, your direction of spin will change. This element can be frustrating, but in a good way. Being able to complete challenges may require figuring out the right angle and velocity so that your Rabbid points in the direction you need, when you need it. Given the challenges you are tasked with, this is important.
Each world has 15 missions, which can be many different things. Simple ones include "Reach a speed of X" or "Travel X amount of miles." There are also coins on the map, which can be used to buy more powerful gear, and a common mission is collecting X amount of coins. These challenges are easy to complete, and would be repetitive if not for the importance of getting a three-star (not actually stars but Rabbids heads, but it's easy and, for the sake of ranking, to use the term starts) rating. Each mission shows a pie-chart at the top that shows the time needed for three, two, or one starts respectively. Completing many challenges with one star is easy - getting the three star ranking is a different story. The times needed for three stars are often unforgiving, and getting the better ranking requires great strategy and timing.
I am not necessarily one who goes for completion of rank in games, but this game demands it. You don't feel like you really conquered the challenge until you get three stars, and unlocking new worlds require a certain amount of stars, so you have to improve your rank at some point. For beginning the game I simply beat each challenge, but once I got used to the mechanics I returned to get three stars.
The timing needed for the three stars rank becomes exponentially more difficult with deeper challenges. There are many that require you to do laps around planets, which always resulted in my taking a deep breath and focusing. These challenges are tough as getting a perfect circle orbit is tough enough alone. If you have a stable orbit you will not want to use your jet-pack, as that changes the orbit. However, letting your momentum carry without use of the jet-pack is often times not enough to beat the three star time. And, once your in orbit, you only have the fuel orbs that revolve around that planet to help you.
The other challenge that really makes you work, but rewards you with an incredible sense of accomplishment is that of the final challenge of each world. You must pass through a series of rings to complete it, but you must travel through the rings in a specific order. Because of this, these challenges are particularly tough as you must master the pre-determined course. Again, hitting them all isn't bad, but hitting them all without a mistake to get the best rank is something else completely.
There are some other elements to the game - getting a higher rank gives you more coins to power up your launch and jet-pack. There are also power-ups you can buy for each mission, like a magnet to attract coins and additional launch/jet-pack power. If you run out of fuel you can also press a button to buy more fuel with coinage. Using the power-ups and jet-pack fuel buy-ins will make the game easier. I didn't use any to complete any challenge, but getting stuck on a tough mission may warrant the decision.
The challenges are plenty as the worlds are numerous, so the time it took me to complete everything was considerable. I was surprised at how long the game lasted, and how, little by little, I improved my control of the mechanics. The game says that more worlds come soon, and I hope so, as I still am ready to be challenged further.
The game also makes good use of Google Play with many achievements and leader boards. I put enough time into this game that I was in the top percentile of certain stats by the time I completed it.
The game is not perfect however. It can be frustrating, but it did get what I call the improvement-difficulty factor right. When something is difficult, trying makes you come closer and closer, motivating you to continue trying until you do it. This sense of improvement is integral for keeping your interest, as opposed to getting stressed and giving up. On the rare occasion of an incredibly difficult mission, I found giving the game a break for a couple days before trying again helped.
The challenges do get repetitive - you find that some are always easy and others are always hard. It helps though that each world presents a new challenge, as some have only a couple large planets and others have many small ones. The game looks good in this regard - the colors are vibrant and the space setting lets the game look nice despite its ridiculous presentation.
I may be overrating this game, but I found its learning curve and difficulty just right - tough but achievable. For the price the game lasted a long time and kept my interest, and with barely any interaction with the world except using a jet-pack.
My rating: 92/100
Photo from Microsoft App Store
http://rabbids.ubi.com/bwaaah/en-US/games/mobile/rabbids_big_bang/index.aspx
The game is nonsensical. The Rabbids games are usually based on some silly premise in order to have gameplay that is different. I'm still not sure what genre I would call this game. It's action in that it is based on timing and reflex. But at the same time it is strategic in that completing challenges requires some planning, trial and error.
The game is setup into worlds (as I will call them), of which each is composed of 15 missions on the same map. The game is called Big Bang as it takes place in space. In each world there is an assortment of objects. The primary objects are planets that have visible gravitational fields. The other objects do various things - passing a UFO gives you a speed boost, there are moon-like objects that have reverse-gravity, and cannons that shoot your Rabbid in various directions, among others.
The gameplay is simple yet challenging. I believe this is where the game works so well. You really only do two things. The first is press a direction to begin - one Rabbid with a jet-pack object is whacked by another Rabbid with a random object. With this, the Rabbid leaves the starting planet and begins the orbit in the direction you chose. From this point, the game is entirely controlled by pressing/pressing and holding on the screen to activate the Rabbid's jet-pack. Despite the simplicity of the game being more or less activating the jet-pack, the challenge is incredible at times and therefore quite rewarding.
The depth comes from the fact that the Rabbid stays in movement by being pulled by gravity - whatever object you are closest to (relative to its gravity) pulls you towards it. If you are headed straight towards a planet, you will land/crash. However, given that you begin at an angle somewhat parallel to the planet's surface, the sideways movement means your Rabbid circles the planet.
The jetpack is how you control your Rabbids movement after the initial launch. The fuel is limited, so managing movement is a challenge. There are fuel orbs orbiting planets, and the randomness of these can often determine your outcome. Getting just enough fuel orbs is tough- if you go out of your way for them you may burn more fuel than they are worth. Luckily restarting a mission changes fuel orbs position, so for particularly difficult missions you can retry till you can grab a few orbs early.
The real challenge of the jet-pack is that it pushes your Rabbid in the direction of its head. The jet-pack faces the opposite way so this simple Newtonian principle fuels the game. So how do you control the direction? Timing. This game impressed me with its need to get perfect timing. After launch, your Rabbid continually spins. It can spin clockwise or counter-clockwise, and when the planet you are orbiting changes, your direction of spin will change. This element can be frustrating, but in a good way. Being able to complete challenges may require figuring out the right angle and velocity so that your Rabbid points in the direction you need, when you need it. Given the challenges you are tasked with, this is important.
Each world has 15 missions, which can be many different things. Simple ones include "Reach a speed of X" or "Travel X amount of miles." There are also coins on the map, which can be used to buy more powerful gear, and a common mission is collecting X amount of coins. These challenges are easy to complete, and would be repetitive if not for the importance of getting a three-star (not actually stars but Rabbids heads, but it's easy and, for the sake of ranking, to use the term starts) rating. Each mission shows a pie-chart at the top that shows the time needed for three, two, or one starts respectively. Completing many challenges with one star is easy - getting the three star ranking is a different story. The times needed for three stars are often unforgiving, and getting the better ranking requires great strategy and timing.
I am not necessarily one who goes for completion of rank in games, but this game demands it. You don't feel like you really conquered the challenge until you get three stars, and unlocking new worlds require a certain amount of stars, so you have to improve your rank at some point. For beginning the game I simply beat each challenge, but once I got used to the mechanics I returned to get three stars.
The timing needed for the three stars rank becomes exponentially more difficult with deeper challenges. There are many that require you to do laps around planets, which always resulted in my taking a deep breath and focusing. These challenges are tough as getting a perfect circle orbit is tough enough alone. If you have a stable orbit you will not want to use your jet-pack, as that changes the orbit. However, letting your momentum carry without use of the jet-pack is often times not enough to beat the three star time. And, once your in orbit, you only have the fuel orbs that revolve around that planet to help you.
The other challenge that really makes you work, but rewards you with an incredible sense of accomplishment is that of the final challenge of each world. You must pass through a series of rings to complete it, but you must travel through the rings in a specific order. Because of this, these challenges are particularly tough as you must master the pre-determined course. Again, hitting them all isn't bad, but hitting them all without a mistake to get the best rank is something else completely.
There are some other elements to the game - getting a higher rank gives you more coins to power up your launch and jet-pack. There are also power-ups you can buy for each mission, like a magnet to attract coins and additional launch/jet-pack power. If you run out of fuel you can also press a button to buy more fuel with coinage. Using the power-ups and jet-pack fuel buy-ins will make the game easier. I didn't use any to complete any challenge, but getting stuck on a tough mission may warrant the decision.
The challenges are plenty as the worlds are numerous, so the time it took me to complete everything was considerable. I was surprised at how long the game lasted, and how, little by little, I improved my control of the mechanics. The game says that more worlds come soon, and I hope so, as I still am ready to be challenged further.
The game also makes good use of Google Play with many achievements and leader boards. I put enough time into this game that I was in the top percentile of certain stats by the time I completed it.
The game is not perfect however. It can be frustrating, but it did get what I call the improvement-difficulty factor right. When something is difficult, trying makes you come closer and closer, motivating you to continue trying until you do it. This sense of improvement is integral for keeping your interest, as opposed to getting stressed and giving up. On the rare occasion of an incredibly difficult mission, I found giving the game a break for a couple days before trying again helped.
The challenges do get repetitive - you find that some are always easy and others are always hard. It helps though that each world presents a new challenge, as some have only a couple large planets and others have many small ones. The game looks good in this regard - the colors are vibrant and the space setting lets the game look nice despite its ridiculous presentation.
I may be overrating this game, but I found its learning curve and difficulty just right - tough but achievable. For the price the game lasted a long time and kept my interest, and with barely any interaction with the world except using a jet-pack.
My rating: 92/100
http://rabbids.ubi.com/bwaaah/en-US/games/mobile/rabbids_big_bang/index.aspx