Why Rayman Origins is the most joyful gaming experience of 2011.

After I’d bought Rayman Origins online, I was excited about its impending arrival. Genuine 6-year-old level of excitement. I played the demo over and over and over in the absence of the full game, pining for the limbless little chap to come and brighten my life in an Amazon jiffy bag. Mercifully, the game arrived fairly promptly, and my excitement levels increased once again. I tore open the cellophane with relish, inhaling the heady scent of a new game. I even read the manual. Why, you may ask, am I accounting this in such detail? Because, dear reader, no game has done this to me in a long time. It’s the only game in this console generation that has made me feel like a 6-year-old, and that is what the best games do.  

The excitement didn’t end when I started playing it either. On a purely cosmetic level, the game looks stunning. Not stunning in the same way as a grimy New York alleyway in Crysis 2, but stunning as in it actually looks nice, something which the majority of games today abandon. I mean, realism is impressive and all, but it’s not very exciting is it? The environments in Rayman Origins are places which you’d actually like to visit, or stick up on your wall in a frame. The music throughout is excellent too, with perfectly selected tracks for each level. There are certain recurring ditties that are used to signify success, for example the jangly little ukulele melody that is played when you find a secret electoon. These are hugely charming, and after long play sessions are very much placed into your head. Rayman himself is an endearing little bugger as well, and even his potentially creepy celebratory pelvic thrusts are delivered with a degree of likeability.

Just look at it.

However, these are all but contributory points to the main factor which makes Rayman Origins so great – the pure platforming gameplay. As a game that is unashamedly very much a game, with no cack-handed attempts at social commentary or emotional storytelling, the actual gameplay had to be great otherwise Origins would have fallen flat on its face. Thankfully, it’s an absolute stonker. For someone like me (neither a masochist nor a brain-dead spacker) the balance is perfect; levels which are fairly easy to complete and have forgiving checkpoints, but with hidden items and rooms within them, making 100% completion far more challenging. Just brilliant.

For a game that is so utterly beautiful in every sense of the word, a game which alienates nobody, a game which could provide both an introduction into the world of videogames for a small child and a breath of fresh air for a seasoned gamer, the game has sold less than spectacularly. By less than spectacularly, I mean that it’s sold incredibly badly, which is an absolute chuffing disgrace. The fact that Ubisoft have made far, far less money with Origins than they have with the Raving Rabbids games on Wii is a sad indictment on gamers. Rayman Origins is one of the freshest, most exciting and utterly charming games in years, but is guaranteed to never receive a sequel thanks to public indifference. Enjoy your derivative war shooters, folks!