Rayman 3 - Hoodlum Havoc

STORY / GAMEPLAY
When Globox (Raymans' good buddy) accidentally swallows the Lord of the Dark Lums, a fanatic army of trigger-happy Hoodlums wreaks havoc to get their Lord back! Unfortunately Globox is now forced to live the rest of his life having the evil Lum Chief bouncing inside his belly! Rayman now needs to start an epic journey to purge the Dark Lum Lord from the manic Globox, search the lands for new powers, fight huge transforming bosses and whole armies, with more than 20 different types of enemies, including Hoodlums, Evil Dark Lums and the savage Knaaren. Fortunately there are several power-ups scattered around to collect with brand new abilities such as Shock Rockets, Heavy Metal Fists and the Throttle Copter (a quick vertical boost pack). Power-ups do not help only to increase Rayman's power but some will also allow to perform certain abilities such as swinging over water or smashing through obstacles that will then provide other power-ups to open an earlier door at the beginning of the stage etc. So, the puzzles are plenty to discover and solve in order to proceed. Rayman controls are fluid and easy to master, with responsive analog controls and the return of his helicopter-ears technique. An extra feature to this installment is that, you can now lock onto targets by holding the R button. There are several cut-scenes between stages to keep the story fresh and funny at the same time. Note that the GameCube version features exclusive content compared to the other releases of the game, which include several mini-games. Additional content could be unlocked by connecting the Game Boy Advance version of the game to it! Rayman 3 is an almost excellent 3D platform game since it's beautiful, quite a challenge and loaded with rewards!

GRAPHICS / SOUND
Rayman 3 is considered one of the prettiest 3D platform titles of its time, with plenty of soft colors, lighting effects, beautifully done textures and solid animations. Developers gave incredible attention to detail, great variety, lots of challenges and humor with a solid frame-rate at any time during gameplay. Rayman 3 is really an eye catching game! The game's sound is excellent too, with plenty of nicely composed soundtracks combined with a variety of sampled sound effects and voice dialogues.