Rayman will be in Academy of Champions

[spiraldoor]

Maybe someone new is in charge, or some thick-headed guy bought the company.

No. Yves Guillemot, the current CEO, was one of the founders.

[PluMGMK]

got the public from across the globe to sign a petition or something to get us recognised...

There is a petition at Petition-Online to spearhead the development of the real Rayman 4.

[Acarr]

Doesn't seem like it's working then...

[PluMGMK]

Well, I'm the 1481st signatory. There are probably 14810 Rabbid fans.

[syntheticgerbil]

I wonder who's responsible for what Ubisoft are doing now. I think that Nintendo indirectly contributed, what with their Wii development tools causing the cancellation of R4 and its recycling into RRR1. And I can't really see Imagine being a great success on anything other than the Nintendo DS.

But I'm sure there must have been some deliberate and intentional shift from the old Ubi to the new one somewhere in the upper administration levels...

I personally think they went downhill after Sands of Time. Sure they've had some crappy licensed games before, but after Rayman 2 followed by Sands of Time success they started expanded for the worse, paying attention to what only makes money rather than just delivering good games. Rayman 3 was great, but there's a lot I don't like about it compared to 2. It doesn't help they pissed off Jordan Mechner with their changes to *HIS* creation, Prince of Persia. Same thing with Michel Ancel, especially with their failure to offer any support to Beyond Good and Evil's launch, his most personal game. Then with RRR they pissed him off even more by changing his designs to a party game.

I'm just sick of this company having no faith in their good products and working half-assed on everything else. Sure they tried to fix the damage they did with Warrior Within with somewhat better Prince of Persia games after, but the damage had been done. They still have been on the fence with Beyond Good and Evil 2 for years now and *maybe* they really will send the Rabbids home, but I doubt it.

The Rabbids wouldn't have been so grating if they had just been in the platform game as originally planned and had not spun off 3 party game sequels.

[spiraldoor]

as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential, they need more sales promotions than anticipated.

[Haruka]

as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential, they need more sales promotions than anticipated.

I agree with you Spiral.

[PluMGMK]

as some of our games did not meet the required quality levels to achieve their full potential, they need more sales promotions than anticipated.

I agree with you Spiral.

Whole-heartedly! What sort of stupid thing was that to say?

[Haruka]

It seems they are convinced that sales solve their problem... *Facepalm*

[Acarr]

I wonder who's responsible for what Ubisoft are doing now. I think that Nintendo indirectly contributed, what with their Wii development tools causing the cancellation of R4 and its recycling into RRR1. And I can't really see Imagine being a great success on anything other than the Nintendo DS.

But I'm sure there must have been some deliberate and intentional shift from the old Ubi to the new one somewhere in the upper administration levels...

I personally think they went downhill after Sands of Time. Sure they've had some crappy licensed games before, but after Rayman 2 followed by Sands of Time success they started expanded for the worse, paying attention to what only makes money rather than just delivering good games. Rayman 3 was great, but there's a lot I don't like about it compared to 2. It doesn't help they pissed off Jordan Mechner with their changes to *HIS* creation, Prince of Persia. Same thing with Michel Ancel, especially with their failure to offer any support to Beyond Good and Evil's launch, his most personal game. Then with RRR they pissed him off even more by changing his designs to a party game.

I'm just sick of this company having no faith in their good products and working half-assed on everything else. Sure they tried to fix the damage they did with Warrior Within with somewhat better Prince of Persia games after, but the damage had been done. They still have been on the fence with Beyond Good and Evil 2 for years now and *maybe* they really will send the Rabbids home, but I doubt it.

The Rabbids wouldn't have been so grating if they had just been in the platform game as originally planned and had not spun off 3 party game sequels.

They did however release a really great "Asassins Creed" for the 360 just recently, so I'm just guessing they just create games they believe will sell the most copies of.

[spiraldoor]

They did however release a really great "Asassins Creed" for the 360 just recently, so I'm just guessing they just create games they believe will sell the most copies of.

That was multiplatform. And it wasn't released recently, that was like a year ago. They're already well into developing the sequel, and a PSP spin-off.

[Acarr]

They did however release a really great "Asassins Creed" for the 360 just recently, so I'm just guessing they just create games they believe will sell the most copies of.

That was multiplatform. And it wasn't released recently, that was like a year ago. They're already well into developing the sequel, and a PSP spin-off.

It seems like I'm still in 2008 when it comes to games.

[Cairnie]

Gerbil, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a love hate relationship with Rayman 3 like I do. Backtracking to crank up the scores just won't make up for how short it was.

I think they started to sink low was about 2000/2001 time, when Rayman M came out. Oh how much I FFFFFF'd when I had Donald Duck's Quack attack aka what most of their DS games look like now.

[Haruka]

Gerbil, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a love hate relationship with Rayman 3 like I do.

Who said that it was only you and Gerbil? For me Rayman 3 isn't so great as R2 was.

There are stuff on R3 that I didn't like it, the game could have been pretty better if it was Ancel working on all the game as he did on R2 and R1.

[syntheticgerbil]

They did however release a really great "Asassins Creed" for the 360 just recently, so I'm just guessing they just create games they believe will sell the most copies of.

Well Assassin's Creed was well hyped before it came out, but now the game sells very cheap used. The game used some very good ideas and made some innovations, but the gameplay got tedious for many, as well as the ending being extremely abrupt and sequel ready.

Kind of the way they abruptly ended the newest (and shortest) PoP but added the DLC that ended the game for another 15 bucks or so later.

Gerbil, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a love hate relationship with Rayman 3 like I do. Backtracking to crank up the scores just won't make up for how short it was.

I think they started to sink low was about 2000/2001 time, when Rayman M came out. Oh how much I FFFFFF'd when I had Donald Duck's Quack attack aka what most of their DS games look like now.

Yeah Rayman 3 had many things I didn't agree with, like rebooting the characters once again. I could understand the reboot from Rayman 1 to 2, but why did Ly, Polokus, and Clark disappear? Ly was especially jarring, because she was sort of an essential character. They also sort of recharactered everyone else who returned, and made Rayman much more cocky than he needed to be. The Murphy transition was okay with me, but I would have preferred everyone still speak Raymanian over the English voices. Maybe the game sounds better in spoken French, though?

I also did not like all aspects of Rayman's redesign for 3, although I could live with it. He was made to look like a more hip version from his Rayman 2 counterpart, but they ovedid it a little bit? I did like the Hoodlums and most of the new bad guys, but maybe villians like Razoff, Reflux, and Begoniax weren't as interesting looking as the Robo Pirates or even some of the first Rayman's great bosses.

The point system, like you said, were really cheap filler for an otherwise short game. The platform parts seemed either too easy and unchallegning or too hard only because of game glitches and bugs. The points added strategy that wouldn't have been there otherwise, but it also made it tedious to try to rack up the right amount of combos. It was kind of silly to keep a combo going and then suddenly have to switch to first person mode to get that weird bonus for looking at that lizard close up. I really still don't know what's up with the weird "spot the lizard" design stuff...

Other than that, I really liked the graphics, cinematics, and music (haha but not that lame Groove Armada track), something most original IP games Ubisoft has done a good job on. Ancel gave his approval for 3, but I still wish I could play the Rayman 4 that was being initially worked on. Haha, it almost feels like Ubisoft has put Ancel inside a dungeon for now.

Academy of Champions is definitely a new low in terms of blandness and graphics for Ubisoft, or at least a game that has their mascots involved. Besides the redone mascot characters, why are the 10 team players almost all the same person?

[Cairnie]

Oh man, I HATED the Groove Armada song [in fact they're a shit band in general, not to offend fans]. Fuck it's almost as bad as when they put an Amy Winehouse song in TV party gah.

[Haruka]

Yeah Rayman 3 had many things I didn't agree with, like rebooting the characters once again. I could understand the reboot from Rayman 1 to 2, but why did Ly, Polokus, and Clark disappear? Ly was especially jarring, because she was sort of an essential character. They sort of recharactered everyone else, and made Rayman much more cocky. The Murphy transition was okay with me, but I would have preferred everyone still speak Raymanian over the English voices. Maybe the game sounds better in spoken French?

I also did not like all of Rayman's redesign, although I could live with it. He was made to look like a more hip version from his Rayman 2 counterpart, but maybe he was made a little too cocky (again)? I did like the Hoodlums and most of the new bad guys, but maybe villians like Razoff, Reflux, and Begoniax weren't as interesting looking as the Robo Pirates or even some of the first Rayman's great bosses.

The points, like you said, were a really cheap filler for an otherwise short game. The platform parts seemed either too easy or hard only because of game glitches and bugs. The points added strategy that wouldn't have been there otherwise, but it also made it tedious to try to rack up the right amount of combos. It was kind of silly to keep a combo going and then suddenly switch to first person mode to get that weird bonus for looking at that lizard. I don't know what's up with the weird spot the lizard stuff...

Other than that, I like the graphics, cinematics, and music, something most original IP games Ubisoft has done good on. Ancel gave his approval for 3, but I still wish I could play the Rayman 4 that was being initially worked on. Haha, it almost feels like Ubisoft has put Ancel inside a dungeon for now.

Academy of Champions is definitely a new low in terms of blandness and graphics for Ubisoft. Besides the redone mascot characters, why are the 10 team players almost all the same person?

I'm totally agree with you.

I can remind my disapointed face when I saw the first screenshots in 2003 of the new Rayman design. I didn't like it. I was "WHY they had to change its visual?!". Nowadays I appreciate it BUT I still prefer the R2 design, I think Rayman was already great on R2 design! (As Rayman was originally going to appear on the 3rd game with the R2 design)

Then it was Murfy changed on design and personality. I liked the design but the personality despite of being funnier I think he lost some of the charm.

And Globox's voice is very different comparing to R2! (On the French version that doesn't happen) And did you guys noticed the differences of Gumsi's English voice with the French one?

Then the Teensies got also a surprising change of personality too. Such as instead on thanking Rayman they tease him. What the hell?

The Lums were gone (Except on the Red ones but ONLY when you do a grimace to a Black Lum, because the scattered ones are different) and most of the amazing characters of R2 also were missing, I mean where is Clark?! Where is Ly?! Where is Polokus?! Where is Uglette (Because when Globox comments about the Girl voice on the Hoodlum Headquarters and falls on the painting trap it seems like he forgot about his wife!)?! Where is everybody?!

Then we have the jokes on the game, some of them hilarious... other much more dry... I think this kind of humour didn't fit quite well on the game...

I talked about Globox and Gumsi's voices some lines ago. On Rayman 2 for me both French and English versions were awesome... but the English R3 is more screwed than the French one.

I liked the Hoodlums, they are funny and I loved the Knaarens but for me Razoff and Begoniax weren't very interesting. I still prefer the Robo-Pirates they are much more original, funnier and more interesting.

And finally the score mode... "wow", it can put a person playing more time it's true (if that person wants to improve on the score) but it doesn't help about the lenght of the game (which is shorter). The mini-games could have been better, they are boring to play.

That's why I still prefer Rayman 2/Revolution instead of Rayman 3. This is my personal opinion.

[Cairnie]

They had the cheek to stop the TV series because they decided that Hollywood style writing didn't work, then they get a real Hollywood actor [John Leguizamo in this case] to play Globox.

[Haruka]

They had the cheek to stop the TV series because they decided that Hollywood style writing didn't work, then they get a real Hollywood actor [John Leguizamo in this case] to play Globox.

Which is curious. The TV series for me had so much potiential but no, they had to cancel it.

[MLII]

They had the cheek to stop the TV series because they decided that Hollywood style writing didn't work, then they get a real Hollywood actor [John Leguizamo in this case] to play Globox.

<does not find that very fair>

And anyway, IMO most of the charm the TV series had was that it was messed up.