PixlBit

For better or worse, Ubisoft shows up at most new consoles on day one like an excited but clueless child on the first day of school: brand new pencils, lunch box, and folders, but also torn jeans, hole-y sneakers, unkempt hair, and the same mustard-stained shirt they wear every week. Hey kid, did you get yourself ready for launch day in the dark? With the Nintendo Wii U, Ubisoft is looking sharp with a range of heavy hitters like Assassin’s Creed 3, to new creative new work like ZombiU, and then you have their recurring badge of mediocrity in the form of Rabbids Land. The Rabbids have made a zany name for themselves over the years and their newest outing is more akin to games like Mario Party than anything else. I can say after spending some time with it that it’s not a great game, but it’s not terrible. Rabbids Land is a party game, and that’s that. 

Rabbids Land begins with a few Rabbids trying to get into an amusement park. Being too small to get in, they take matters into their own hands and wreak havoc in their own theme park. Once you start up the game, you have a few options, but the majority is locked until you finish at least one game. The main attraction here is Board Game: Trophy Race. This has up to four players in a race to collect a set amount of trophies by completing challenges on a game board. On the board there are different squares that have different effects. Some cause harm to other members on the board, others give you bonuses that you can use to give yourself an advantage and some squares are your traditional mini-game challenge. 

These games can be either quizzes or mini-game challenges that pit one player against another. Aside from the quizzes, every challenge only has two people against each other at a time, unlike other games which get everyone involved. Either way, the mini-games are crazy and sometimes fun, but not all of them work as planned. Many of the games seemed skewed to be easier for the player using the Wii Remote, while the player with the GamePad was at a disadvantage. A quick example is a game where the player with the GamePad has to (literally) blow exploding penguins into a boat that is controlled by the player with the Wii Remote. The player with the Wii Remote can fling the controller to throw snowballs that protect him. When positioned correctly it makes it almost impossible to penetrate the defense and ultimately made the game one-sided. 

There is some slight fun to be had though. The overall craziness of the game goes over really well in a party setting, and the competitive nature of the game really shines during later moments in the game. Though it's basic, I did ultimately enjoy playing with my friends. It functions well as a party favor, and will add to a fun game night with friends. That said, the game doesn’t get much better than that. The two locked extra modes are just the mini-games that you play in board game mode, so you can play them separately. With the mini-games being mediocre overall, it was a letdown that there wasn’t anything better to do. 

Overall, I expected Rabbids Land to be worse than it was. The sheer fact that I had fun means that the game is functional on some level. However, the unbalanced mini-games, repetitive nature, and the limited use of the game make it a hard sell. The game is playable exclusively on the GamePad, which would be a nice feature if the game wasn’t completely boring by yourself. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend Rabbids Land. You might as well wait for the next Mario Party, or something that adds more variety to the mix until Ubisoft cleans up its act.