The psychotic, plunger-brandishing bunnies from Rayman Raving Rabbids were such a hit that Rayman, who has never been that popular with American gamers, became merely a tool to see more bunny action. Even though he had several unlockable costumes, the real fun was to see the many incarnations of the bunnies as Supermen, cowboys and Sam Fishers. This year, Ubisoft seems to better understand this reality, putting Rayman in a background position and giving the bunnies more space to perform their crazy screams. But as funny as these bunnies are (and they are very funny) there are still some issues that keep Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 far from perfection.

The premise of Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 is simple: after invading Rayman's planet -- which, honestly, is not that fun of a place -- the bunnies have decided to move to Earth and learn some of the classic human activities. By traveling different regions of the world, Rayman must study them as they cut sushi in Japan, eat hot chillies in South America and paint graffiti in the United States. Each one of the six geographic areas features a set of six mini-games, more or less related to the continent they take place in. The last one in every set is a music game that requires players to tap on circles at the right times, as notes and multipliers fall from the top of the touch screen. The game makes a great use of the DS' functionalities, with mini-games that span from circular movements to quick tapping all the way to blowing and talking nonsense in the microphone.


Not all the mini-games, though, deliver the same fun. While some of them are well-designed and easy to understand, others fail in either intuitiveness or precision of controls. Blowing-related games, such as "Cookies Factory" or "Bunny Bubble," are often poor at registering the player's blowing into the microphone and even the simple task of drawing circles and crosses in "Checkup" is made more difficult by the game's random inability to recognize symbols. On the other hand, all the music games are enjoyable and the graffiti ones (three in total) are a good exercise in precision and quickness. The mini-games that come straight from the Wii version are by far the most fun ones. "Look at Me" requires adjusting a photo booth seat so that the bunny's head is perfectly centered: the pictures taken are absolutely hilarious and it's almost a pity that we can't save them in a gallery section. "Simon" and "Restroom" are adapted from the first Rayman Raving Rabbids on Wii and still prove to be great mini-games.