Not too terribly long ago, a crossover game involving Mario and friends teaming up with Ubisoft's Rabbids was "leaked" onto the internet and confirmed to be real, and it was met with general "uh, okay" the world over. However, it reminded me about Rabbids Go Home!, a game that is supposedly rather dandy for the Nintendo Wii. So, seeing it wasn't all that pricey, I nabbed myself a copy, and here I am.
Rabbids Go Home! is a comedic stage-by-stage collectathon adventure game, and a fairly amusing one. Each stage has around 400 collectable objects, plus the "goal" object that is worth 600 of them, and your ultimate goal is to build a pile of junk to the moon so you can nap on it or something. Stages are unlocked via a total amount of height your pile has become, so there is incentive to actually nab things. Plus, nabbing certain amounts of things in each stage unlocks accessories and other stuff for customizing your Rabbids (more on that in a bit). Each stage has a gimmick of some sort based on its theme, such as a carrying a terminally ill hospital patient will give you the power to jump and glide, and a Jet Engine will change your way of play entirely. Progressing through the game also surprisingly does get more challenging as you go on, which I wasn't expecting considering it was a Wii game. However, having a Second Player on hand makes a lot of challenges in the game a joke, but it's still good fun. Oh, and each stage also has a delightfully animated introduction, which I enjoy thoroughly.
Going back to the customization of your Rabbids, you have three Rabbids you control through the game: One that pushes the shopping trolley you carry your loot in, one that shouts at things in your cart, and one that you fire out of your Wiimote at things in the game. The game gives you various tools for adjusting the ears and eyes of the Rabbids (including removing them all together), and various paint tools and decals to stamp on your Rabbids to make them your way. There are also head accessories such as a cube of gelatin and a bird's nest to add a bit more fun. One of the options is even a swordfish with Capri Sun pouches impaled on its beak! Wait, Capri Sun...
That's right, this game has product placement in it! It starts with a hospital level when you see a blurry billboard in the background that says "Respect the Pouch" and my going "Is that...Capri Sun? Nah, it couldn't be" and then a little later in the level, billboards are pasted EVERYWHERE with the same slogan, and then it came back to me about a strange campaign Capri Sun had before where bad things happen to people who messed with Capri Sun pouches or something, and this was really weird. It really drove in the product placement when you go to a grocery store level and the game stops with an in-game animation of the Rabbids finding Capri Sun and then one of them messes with a pouch and their head gets turned into a Swordfish, as shown below.
Wrapping things up, the game isn't exactly immune to the "Ubisoft Charm" as there were plenty of instances that I could clip out of bounds, one instance being late in a level and my only choice was to restart. At least it was interesting exploring where no one should be. However, this game is still a lot of good zany fun. And for the inquiring minds, the game has a lot of interesting music choices, mostly around Feelgood tunes.
