Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc (2003)

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a worthy successor for the second game. It adds new game play mechanics, new enemies and a fun new story filled with jokes, new challenges and beautiful locations.

In terms of story, Rayman 3 stays true to the previous games. You got your villain, in this case a Hoodlum called André who wants to take over the world by turning all the Lums into the black, plushy Hoodlum enemies in the game. Rayman (and Globox) need to stop him and his army of Hoodlums and save the world.

You travel trough many different worlds with the help of the Teensies, who are always partying and sometimes take a moment to teleport you to the next world. Every time you are about to enter a new world, you need to complete a skateboarding level in a space dimension with rails that you need to stay on. You go to swamp worlds, icy mountains, forests and fairy landscapes. It is all great fun and no level looks the same. The levels are linear but designed in a way that you can explore them however you want, and you can backtrack almost any time.

The mechanics in Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc have been greatly improved. You now have a targeting system to hit enemies more effectively, can throw punches in an arch around them and the best new feature of all: The different suits that you collect, each with their unique power. You got power fist armor which can be used to insta-kill most enemies and break wooden doors, swinging grappling hook armor which lets you swing on rings, a rocket suit that let you guide a rocket towards a target or enemy and many more. They last a short amount of time but when you got a can (yeah, they come in cans), you can recharge the suit infinitely. Although the cans and their use are heavily scripted in order to progress (a button out of reach that you need to hit with the rocket suit for example), you can still use the suit for an advantage against enemies or discover hidden locations in the area. Many times, I walked back to a can so I could get a stronger punch against the enemies.

Speaking about the enemies, I really like their appearance as sack like dolls with sewed mouths and wobbly movements. They make funny noises when punched and can present a real challenge sometimes. I thought they were just as fun and well balanced as the Pirate Robots from Rayman 2: The Great Escape.

The graphics are also improved from Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Although Rayman himself and Globox look the same, the environments are all completely fresh and filled with live and moving objects. The artwork and colors are just stunning for a game from 2003.

The sound effects are great, and you can feel the punches that you throw at your enemies. The snappy sounds when you grab rings, the destruction of a wooden door that you break, it all sounds perfect. The music tracks are also a work of art on their own. The best examples are the swamp levels, in which the music is a tragic, almost depressing tune that fits the flat and lifeless environment, and the boss battle, in which you get pumped up and the tracks increase in intensity when progressing trough the different phases of the battle.

The controls are fluent and a big improvement over Rayman 2: The Great Escape. Although the controls were all right in that game, in Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc, they feel more responsive and less stiff.

The end boss battle was epic. It did not have the right to be this amazing and thrilling but it did. Conquering the three phases of the final battle was, as a kid, one of my proudest achievements and one of the best boss battles that I experienced.

The best feature in this game is the sarcastic and humorous approach that the game takes on all of a sudden. Murfy reads from the original Rayman manual and makes multiple jokes about the first games and video games in general. Globox is portrayed as an idiot and lives up to that title. His facial expressions and commentary are hilarious, and I still think the humor in this game is one of the best I experienced.

Overall, I think Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a very good game, and I loved every second of it.

Definitely recommend it.