Rayman 3
| Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||
| Published by | Ubisoft | |
| Developed by | Ubisoft | |
| Release date | 3rd March 2003 | |
| Genre | 3D Platformer | |
| Gameplay mode | Single player | |
| Platforms | Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Nokia N-GAGE, Macintosh, DigiBlast, mobile phone | |
‘Rayman 3’ redirects here. For other uses, see Rayman 3 (disambiguation).
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is the third major game in the Rayman series, and the sequel to Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Rayman 3 was released in 2003. It is notable for being the first Rayman game not directed by series creator Michel Ancel, who was occupied with the development of Beyond Good & Evil at the time. Like its immediate predecessor, Rayman 3 is a 3D platformer. However, Rayman 3's levels are more straightfoward and oriented towards action and combat rather than platforming and exploration. The main campaign of Rayman 3 is temporally linear – unlike the previous games, where Rayman could physically return to completed locations, each Rayman 3 level is visited only once within the storyline.
Rayman 3 features a points-based scoring system; another first for the series. Players could post their final scores on the then-new RaymanZone website. However, this function was disabled when RaymanZone was retooled to suit the Raving Rabbids games. In February 2007, members of the Rayman Pirate-Community contacted Ubisoft and successfully arranged for the creation of a new Hall of Fame [1].
Worlds
Similar to the gap between Rayman and Rayman 2, most locations in Rayman 3 were new and not directly connected to those of the previous games. However, they are still the same environments as Rayman's games tend to stick with: the mountains, forests, and swamps from Rayman, and the plains, coasts, and fortresses from Rayman 2. One area in particular, the Fairy Council, was alluded to in Rayman 2, and one of Count Razoff's ancestors (most likely his father) supposedly shot Space Mama; these allusions make Rayman 3's locations generally regarded as still being in the same canon as Rayman and especially Rayman 2.
Rayman 3's worlds in particular included many elements which Rayman 2 and Revolution lacked: unique environments. While the Iron Mountains and the Menhir Hills pretty much looked the same, Rayman 3 's worlds were vast and varied. Many elements from Revolution were included in Rayman 3 's worlds – the most evident of these are the ambient sounds (for example, the Desert of the Knaaren has the same ambience as Beneath the Sanctuary of Rock and Lava) and the unique lighting. Rayman 3 also had many instances of stained glass windows, also a previous characteristic of the Lava Sanctuary.
Rayman 3 returned to the fairy tale-like theme of Rayman 's locations, though not as surreal. Many odd locales dot Rayman 3 's small collection of worlds, such as in the Fairy Council and the Longest Shortcut.
Finally, Rayman 3 included many allusions to its two predecessors. References to the original Rayman game include the picture on the Manual read by Murfy in the Fairy Council, the pictures of Livingstones on plum-posts, the 2D Madness and 2D Nightmare flashback minigames, and the revelation of a connection between Razoff's ancestors and the Space Mama of Picture City. References to Rayman 2 include the appearance of the previously-mentioned Heart of the World, statues of Sssssam the Watersnake in Razoff's mansion, a statue of Ly the Fairy in a hidden room in the Longest Shortcut, and statues of Admiral Razorbeard and his Robo-Pirate servants in a secret room in the Hoodlum Headquarters. Additionally, both Murfy and Globox both make tongue-in-cheek metafictional references to Rayman 2 – Murfy complains that he was promised a larger role after Rayman 2 than he received, and Globox complains that Rayman is somewhat less pleasant than he was in the previous game.
Plot
A Red Lum is frightened so badly that it transforms into a malevolent Black Lum named André. André then corrupts a large number of other Red Lums into Dark Lums, forming an army of them. The Black Lums steal the fur from animals such as Mawpaws, and use it to weave costumes for themselves, becoming Hoodlums. When André, dressed up in a Hoodlum costume, starts heading towards Rayman, Globox and Murfy, the latter two desperately try to wake Rayman up. Globox eventually becomes so frightened that he accidently pulls off Rayman's hands and runs off with them. Murfy picks Rayman up by his hair and flies off with him, waking him up. More Hoodlums try to shoot down Murfy and Rayman as they fly away, but they both escape. They then begin searching for Globox and Rayman's hands.
However, when, they find Globox and Rayman gets his hands back, André, along with two slapdashes, pursue the large toad. Rayman and Murfy go following him into the building of the Fairy Council. Rayman soon defeats André's Hoodlum costume, which drops a Laser-Washing-Detergeant Can behind, and André flees towards the Heart of the World, wanting to gain ower from there. After Rayman tries out the Laser-Washing Detergeant, called 'combat fatigues', he and Murfy pursure André to stop him from getting to his destination. They find Globox along the way, who accidentally swallows the Dark Lum Lord.
Score system
Rayman 3 was the second game to have a score system (after Rayman Revolution), and the first for the score system to be in an arcade-style format. This score system allowed players to upload their scores onto RaymanZone's Lums Quest until its reformat for Rayman Raving Rabbids, after which the Lums Quest ended. The score system increased the replay value of Rayman 3. The scoring system followed this formula:
- Collect a Jewel / Break a Piggy Bank / Break a door / Defeat a Hoodlum
- Points are added to Score
- Combo Mode starts
- During Combo Mode, step 1 brings double points to step 2
- Unless step 1 is carried out consistently, Combo Mode shortly ends
If Rayman is using a Laser-Washing Powder Can, each point is doubled, increasing the amount of points he can get and quadrupling the payoff of Combo Mode.
While the developers thought the maximum attainable score was around 500,000 points, the discovery of various glitches and the mastery of the scoring mechanics allowed much higher scores, the highest known overall score being 858,001 points. [source]
Main characters
Friends
- Rayman - The hero and protagonist of the game
- Globox - Rayman's best friend and Uglette's husband
- Murfy - Serves as an "instructor"-type character
- The Teensies - Keepers of the Hall of Doors
Enemies
- André - The main antagonist of the game
- The Hoodlums - André's army
The complete list can be seen here: http://www.raymanpc.com/wiki/en/Category:Characters_from_Rayman_3
Levels
- The Fairy Council
- Clearleaf Forest
- The Bog of Murk
- The Land of the Livid Dead
- The Desert of the Knaaren
- The Longest Shortcut
- The Summit Beyond the Clouds
- Hoodlum Headquarters
- The Tower of the Leptys
Trivia
- The Fairy Council and the Heart of the World were first mentioned in Rayman 2, and only now make an appearance in Rayman 3.
- Sometimes, when you start hitting Globox, he says "You were nicer in Rayman 2!".
- There are lots of secret rooms in the game, but three of them refer to Rayman 2. One, located in the Longest Shortcut, has a statue of Ly in it. Another, in the Hoodlum Headquarters, has statues of Razorbeard and some of his Robo-Pirates sitting at a table, in the style of 'The Last Supper' painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Also, in Razoff's mansion, one of the many different statues is of a snake which appears to be Sssssam the Snake from Rayman 2.
- At the beginning of the third part of the Fairy Council, when Rayman and Murfy are looking for André and Globox, Murfy tells Rayman to hurry or else "he'll start telling everyone he's your father!". This is a reference to the famous scene from the film, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, in which the villain, Darth Vader, reveals to the hero, Luke Skywalker, that he is his father.
- In the Fairy Council, when Rayman and Murfy pursue André and encounter the Ludiv, the Dark Lum Lord throws the fairy away from her home, saying Zelda needs her, before hiding in the Ludiv's home. Zelda is a major character from the popular video game series The Legend of Zelda.
- In the Bog of Murk, inside Razoff's house is a room with a large mirror. If Rayman is left in idle in front of it, he'll make a face at himself and notice he has something stuck in his teeth, pulling it out.
- Spiral doors from Rayman 2 have mainly been replaced with Mirrors.
See also
- Rayman 3 (Game Boy Advance), the handheld 2D sidescroller version of Rayman 3, which has a different storyline and gameplay.
- Rayman: Hoodlums' Revenge, the spin-off sequel to Rayman 3.
- Miscellanea