Rayman Legends

Rayman Legends’ delay still stings, especially when you are sitting in an E3 booth playing the game knowing that Rayman Legends originally would have already released on the Wii U. Despite your feelings or frustration with the game’s delay, it’s impossible to play Rayman Legends without a big dumb smile on your face.

The demo starts with a level from the 20,000 Lums Under The Sea world where I sneak past lasers and avoid rotating floodlights. Multiple paths are available, and I chose which direction to take. This choice extends to the level maps, which hopefully makes the game a little easier as you can choose which levels to pursue.

A new boss appears, who wouldn't have been in the game if it hadn't been delayed. It’s a huge robotic dragon. The new engine allows for some 3D modeling, so the robotic dragon moved in and out of the background shooting fireballs and exposing its weakpoint infrequently – a giant diamond in the dragon’s mouth.

A particularly difficult section with a the stealth level has lots of lasers moving and rotating. The music was fantastic, but difficult to describe. Apparently, the score for that particular section is influenced by a laser sneaking scene from the movie Ocean’s 12, and the game's composer created that music to only appear in that one, relatively short section of one level. The music is a big part of the game, and there are times when the full development staff will enter the studio to help record choruses with as many voices as they can gather.

After discussion of the music, it was time to check out the Eye of the Tiger music level. Every opportunity I've received to play Rayman Legends, the music levels have always been the highlight, and Eye of the Tiger did not disappoint.

A new mode never before featured had me with one teammate taking on two competitors in a game of two-dimensional soccer. The field takes place on a single screen with a goal positioned on each side. The two teams bounce the ball back and forth for two minutes trying to score in each other’s goals. It’s simple, and exceptionally fun.

A Ubisoft representative said the delay hurt the team for Rayman Legends, but only slightly. Ubisoft had been working on the game, putting in overtime to get it out the door on time, and the delay meant their work, to a certain degree, went unrewarded. It has not squandered the extra time, however, and the representatives form Ubisoft at E3 who were there say that Rayman Legends is, “far better now.”

Along with adding all kinds of new levels, bosses, and other content, some levels have been entirely changed in order to work on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. The Xbox 360 versions are more than simple ports. The Vita and Wii U versions, on the other hand, are identical since they both have similar touchscreen interfaces.

Rayman Legends is coming to Wii U, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Vita on September 3.