While I appreciate Rayman Origins for what it is, a lot of the fawning over it and holding it up as an example of how the industry has realized the power of art and 2D and charm and blahblahblah seems to be entirely wrongheaded considering they barely broke the 50,000 mark across all platforms. It’s a beautiful game, but nobody wanted it, at least not for $60, and frankly it’s hard to blame them. It gets repetitive very, very quickly and it’s really the non-frustrating co-op that carries it for the most part. I’ve also always found Rayman and his world to be oddly sinister in some intangible way, but I figure that’s part of the appeal.
On the flip side, I don’t get at all why he’s so down on Mario 3D Land, because that’s pretty much the best 3D platformer I’ve played since…well, since Mario Galaxy. I disagree with every single thing he says about the game, I think. In fact, I’d say much of his commentary on it indicates he didn’t grasp much of the nuance of the game’s design at all, possibly from a burning desire to slam Nintendo at all costs. I’m all in favor of kicking Nintendo in the balls whenever appropriate, but this is a pretty damn good game.
Also the jab about how you paid $80 per 3D level is pretty silly. At least part of the cost of the system in my opinion goes toward buying a more powerful handheld, because the regular DS could never have done Mario 3D Land.
Except that the PC audience who actually feels that way is so small that Ubi has publicly contemplated dropping PC support completely, so you may have to wait quite some time for your bonfire party. Or, better yet, don’t buy Ubisoft games and just get over it already. Jesus.
In a sense, it could be argued that Portal is a platformer and the only one at that to make the transition to 3D successfully…at least financially (it may be critically acclaimed as portal, but I have not seen it beeing critically acclaimed as a platformer – in 3D – game).
That would be because it’s not a platformer at all, it’s a puzzle game. I can’t even think of a point in Portal 2 that required me to carefully time or gauge a jump. It’s all about placing the portals properly and then being carried to your goal by the game’s physics.
Post Scriptum
I also agree that Rayman (rainman cough) was a rather forgetful character. Unlike Earthworm Jim, Dangerous Dave, Duke Nukem and the many others throughout the years.
Forgettable. Forgetful means he doesn’t remember stuff well. Although to be fair Rayman seems to be stoned out of his mind most of the time so he may well be forgetful, as well.
