Welcome to the wonderfully wacky world of Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show, a game from Ubisoft that is trying to bring two forms of media together, Television and Gaming. Games like this have improved vastly thanks to the power and performance of the new Kinect on the Xbox One. Rabbids Invasion appeared on Nickelodeon in 2013 for its first series in conjunction with Ubisoft Motion Pictures and is now in its second series. These little guys may well be modeled after a cute and cuddly family pet, but they are more reminiscent of the seven dwarfs, grumpy, psychotic, mischievous, funny, spiteful, disruptive and down right naughty. So when I got the chance to review Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show, I immediately thought to myself how much they have in common with my own two boys, so it was only natural that we did this game as a family, just how it was made to be played. Grabbing my own two Raving Rabbids, JJ and Kegan, we jumped into the world of these lunatic characters to see what they had in store.
Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show consists of 20 plus episodes of the show for you to watch and interact with in various ways throughout each one. It is introduced by a little old lady, the boys started calling Nana, who gets their attention and shows them exactly what to do during each of the episodes. The game is very child friendly sporting a jump in and out system that allows a child to run in and out whenever they want, but also allows them to catch up if the are behind in the points department. This is done simply by ‘Nana’ appearing in the corner of the screen and getting the player to run on the spot for a certain amount of time, the faster they run the more points they accumulate in order to catch up with the others, which I have to say is brilliant as my younger boy tends to be a bit of a hot head and does not take kindly to coming second all the time to his older brother. During each episode of Rabbids Invasion you are tasked with various objectives from spotting objects to recreating the pose of the Rabbid on screen, colouring in beards, and throwing eggs, among others, these tasks are surprisingly fast and pop up at random throughout each episode. Points accumulated by all the players combined go towards unlocking further episodes or items to use in the Rabbids photo booth.
As with all kids, mine love to make noise and jump around like a Rabbid on speed, so what better than the game giving them these exact tasks to do, shouting as loud and long as they can while highly being annoying to my sensitive ears is something they enjoyed immensely. Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show definitely allows the younger gamers to enjoy gameplay that is not exactly strict in its interpretation of who pointed first, or who is pulling off the pose correctly and awards points generously which keeps them entertained and feeling like they are doing it properly. I think with games geared at kids and family play it is important to allow some kind of leniency, which in turn helps the kids compete on the same level even if they don’t always get what they are supposed to be doing. For instance, my younger boy often missed the objects that were appearing on screen for us to point at, but if he was already pointing then it would register him as having found the item, which he soon cottoned on to, and would stand there pointing at an entire episode. It may not be the way it was intended to be played but he played his own way and got rewarded and much joy from it, at the end of the day isn’t that what gaming is all about?
As this is adopted from the actual TV show the Rabbids get up to all manner of crazy things, and at times the kids would just get totally engrossed in the story of the episode and completely miss all the prompts on screen, which then gave daddy the chance to be a complete douche and win. I don’t find it a problem if the kids want to watch, play, jump out or even just stand there, the whole point was they enjoyed each episode, and they soon worked out that the more points they scored the more episodes they could take part in. Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show is not complex in any way shape or form, but its not made to be, it’s made to be simple family fun that suits the chaotic life of having young kids. It gets them involved and moving in ways that are beneficial to them, while giving them the freedom to basically jump in and play when it suits them, and as a parent who is generally busy, helps families to have that all important time together while having fun and laughs. I did find that at some points the game would throw you back to the Xbox Dashboard, making you restart the entire thing up again. While frustrating for me, this may cause children to get agitated because they may be unsure how to get it going again.
Some of the episodes that both the kids and I found hilarious include the one where you have two Rabbids standing at the top of an escalator eating sweets, while another one tries various ingenious ways to reach them. The reason is he is actually trying to get up an escalator that is going down, finally reaching the top, the other two simply go down another escalator leaving him at the top to do it all over again. I think the kids enjoyed the fact they would not share the sweets while the poor Rabbid tried frantically to get one. Another one was the poor old man trying to go fishing but Nana instructed him to have the windows clean first, of course the Rabbids and the kids found it totally funny to repeatedly throw jellyfish and starfish at the windows every time he had them clean. To be honest it gave the kids an excuse to be naughty without suffering the consequences and they really enjoyed doing that.
Rabbids Invasion The Interactive TV Show is pure simple family fun that is not intended to be complex or difficult in any way. For families that have young children this is a game that will take Christmas Day to another level, while giving you some time to sit down and watch, or join in if you are not too drunk or tired. The inclusion of the photo booth is brilliant and the kids really enjoyed making silly faces while surrounded by all the props and Rabbids they unlocked during their games. I do hope Ubisoft patch the problem of returning to the Dashboard to allow this title to run as it should. Simple enjoyable family fun is how I would describe this title, and if you are looking for a deep and meaningful experience don’t look here.
