raving-rabbids
Latest
The Rabbids become TV stars in 2013
Minigames too involved for you? Soon Ubisoft's Raving Rabbids will be able to yell at you without a single waggle on your part. Ubisoft Motion Pictures is producing a series of 78 seven-minute CG cartoons featuring the rude critters, which Nickelodeon will bundle into 26 half-hours for broadcast "worldwide" in 2013. Those should allow you to gauge (to the minute) your tolerance for the Rabbids. The deal excludes France, where France Télévisions Distribution will offer DVD and Video on Demand of the show, alongside episodes broadcast on France 3. And now, because we haven't said it yet: daaaahhhhhh! [Image: Raving Rabbids Alive and Kicking for Xbox 360]
Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking for Kinect on November 8
Raving Rabbids: Alive and Kicking was just announced for Xbox 360's Kinect. The minigame collection, which supports up to four players, only showed off two activities during today's Ubisoft presser. The first was a Whack-a-Mole game involving Rabbids, with another called "fill the shapes," where you get friends all over each other to fill a shape on the screens. The title will give a great excuse to hold a naked party November 8.
Ubisoft Motion Pictures making Assassin's Creed, Ghost Recon, Splinter Cell flicks
Perhaps all that "playing" of your favorite Ubisoft games was getting tiresome? The French game publisher's film arm, Ubisoft Motion Pictures, told Variety this week that it's working to adapt three of Ubisoft's biggest properties -- Assassin's Creed, Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon -- into "3D features," confirming speculative plans that appeared in a consumer survey last month. UMP head Jean-Julien Baronnet explained that his division "has been working with the games' producers and Ubisoft's marketing team to identify the DNA of each game and come up with storylines that are consistent." He also noted that the group's plans have garnered plenty of interest "from US studios and screenwriters." Further, senior VP of international marketing and distribution Jean de Rivieres promises a script for at least one of the projects "by the end of the year." He and two other UMP execs will be taking a trip to Los Angeles next month in order to broker deals with studios and agents, Rivieres added. In addition to the trio of feature projects, the studio is reportedly developing a 3D, CGI animated series based on the Rabbids property and named after the Raving Rabbids game series. It's said to comprise 78 episodes, at seven minutes apiece, and negotiations are apparently underway to distribute the series in France and the US. [Pictured: Assassin's Creed Lineage (2009 web series) set]
Rumor: Aardman Animation working on Raving Rabbids TV show
Ubisoft's Raving Rabbids franchise is ready to jump from video games to television. A report from Bleeding Cool reveals that Aardman Animation -- best known for the Wallace & Gromit franchise -- is looking for animators to work on a TV adaptation of the Rayman spin-off. According to the job call, the show will offer a mixture of live-action footage and computer-generated animation. Apparently, Aardman already has a working relationship with the Rabbids franchise, having already produced a number of CG shorts to promote the upcoming Raving Rabbids Travel in Time. Ubisoft has shared its video game properties with other mediums in the past, with the Assassin's Creed series recently spawning some short films and an upcoming line of comic books.
Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time arrives promptly on Nov. 9
Ubisoft's unhinged Rabbids are set to return like clockwork, with Ubisoft using its E3 2010 press conference to announce Raving Rabbids: Travel in Time. Their latest, potentially excellent adventure puts them at odds with cavemen, gladiators and knights, and sees them teleporting to the Wii in the near future -- November 9th, to be exact. We'd love to revisit the dawn of time with the Rabbids, or perhaps last week, which is when the last Rabbids game out.
Raving Rabbids 4, new Driver planned for Ubisoft's fiscal 2010-11
DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHYUM, a new Raving Rabbids already? With Ubisoft's latest financial revision citing underperformance in several aspects of its business during 2009 -- including the DS market and "non-casual Wii titles" -- the publisher plans to play it safer during its next fiscal year, starting April 1, 2010. That means "a greater number of franchise releases" and, presumably, a continued effort in the realm of Wii casual games. Naturally, Raving Rabbids 4 (as it's currently titled) ticks both of those boxes. The publisher also plans to release a new Driver game during the same period, though it hasn't specified the target platforms nor how it intends to revitalize the franchise. The last time fans saw the action racer, it was hurtling over a cliff, Thelma and Louise style.
Choose your Rabbids Go Home bonus: Assassin's Creed Rabbid ... or Geek Squad Rabbid
Rabbids Go Home is now out, having officially been released yesterday. However, the bonuses typically associated with pre-orders are still up for grabs, in the form of two sets of retailer-exclusive Rabbids. If you order the game from GameStop (who, confusingly, is still accepting pre-orders), you'll receive exclusive Rabbid costumes based on Splinter Cell and Assassin's Creed. If you buy it from Best Buy (in-store), you'll receive exclusive Rabbid costumes based on ... Best Buy. The exclusive Best Buy Employee and Geek Squad Rabbids will be yours! It's a tough choice, we know: the guy from Assassin's Creed or the guy who sold you Assassin's Creed. However, we doubt the codes are one-time use, so you should be able to find all the costume codes online soon enough.
Rabbids Go Home, bothering this poor guy on the way
The latest trailer for Rabbids Go Home introduces a character we wouldn't have ever thought to care about: one of our own. This particular human appears to have a comically exaggerated obsession with cleanliness and order. We know that's supposed to be funny in contrast to the Rabbids, but, honestly, now we're just going to feel bad when we control a pair of screaming rabbit-monsters who wreck this guy's house and take his pants. We're still going to do it, we'll just feel bad.After the break, we've embedded some in-game footage of those jerky Rabbids disrupting our human lives. Plus, we've added new screens and concept art to our gallery below:%Gallery-51831%
Rabbids also Going Home to DS and DSi
Today, Ubisoft revealed the DS and DSi iteration of its upcoming Wii action-adventure, Rabbids Go Home. Like the Wii version, the handheld release follows the story of a bunch of Rabbids building a tower of junk to the moon. However, unlike the Wii version's action-based gameplay, Rabbids Go Home on DS is a "puzzle-adventure" -- which, as it turns out, means basically The Incredible Machine with Rabbids in it.The Rabbids use items found in each level to make a path from the start point to a toilet, while keeping as much junk as possible and avoiding Verminator enemies. The game features 150 physics-based puzzles, as well as a level editor that allows players to make and share their own creations. DSi owners will be able to "take pictures and customize them with funny Rabbid animations."Rabbids Go Home on DS will be available Holiday 2009.
Rabbids ready to 'smash up' with TMNT
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Smash Up doesn't just remind of another famous Nintendo franchise with the word Smash in the cover, now it's got the same style of cameos going on. The Tanooki took note of two different Rabbids that will make an appearance in the melee brawler.The first Rabbid appears to be a standard insanitus bunnykin, while the other is a Sam Fisher Rabbid. The characters surely have their own fighting styles and special moves. Check out the video after the break.
Rabbids Go Home Video
If this trailer for Rabbids Go Home is any indication, the plot of the game, in which the Rabbids decide to go live on the moon, is driven by boredom. Specifically, boredom with Rabbids party games!Along with the (surprisingly) funny trailer, Ubisoft has offered some more details of the new Rabbid adventure. Players control a pair of Rabbids with a shopping cart, which can be augmented with items like jet skis or hospital "Bubble Beds," and collect "various sizes of human stuff" in order to build a pile of junk tall enough to reach the moon. The gameplay is divided into "over 40 missions" in which the Rabbids gather stuff while "scaring the Humans right down to their undies - literally!" The Rabbid-loathing humans, in turn, send out "Verminators" to exterminate the yelling critters. Guess the humans are bored with Rabbids games too!%Gallery-51831%
Ubisoft programmer lists 'Rabbids Go Home' on (raving) resume
Back in October, a trademark appeared in the US trademark database for a piece of "game software" called Rabbids Go Home. According to the résumé of programmer Julien Delezenne, it's -- surprise! -- a Wii game from Ubisoft. Apparently, it's also still in the works, at least as of whenever this document was compiled: Delezenne has been working on it from "November 2007 - Present." Delezenne describes his duties on the title as relating to the "Engine and Tools on the LyN technology ... " Now here's where it gets a bit interesting. He said that he works on that technology "for Rabbids Go Home (Wii) and Beyond Good & Evil 2 (360/PS3)." Shared technology between a super-silly Wii minigame sequel and the high-profile 360/PS3 adventure title? It's promising for the state of Ubisoft's budgets, but also kind of hilarious.
Ubisoft: Prince of Persia had 'slower take-off', Far Cry 2 ships 2.9m
As part of its fiscal earnings report for the quarter ending December 2008, Ubisoft has revealed the "sell-in sales" (that's to retailers, not consumers) for a handful of key titles. Far Cry 2, launched in late October, shipped 2.9 million, while Raving Rabbids TV Party has tallied up 1.5 million since its mid-November unveiling. Unfortunately, a certain wisecracking acrobat didn't seem to meet expectations. According to the report, the above figures helped to "offset the impact of a slower take-off" for Prince of Persia and its 2.2 million shipped units for December. Yesterday's NPD stats put PoP's US sales at around 483K. Ubisoft has also confirmed a fiscal 2009 release window for Assassin's Creed 2, Splinter Cell Conviction and a new Ghost Recon.
Ubisoft: It's not hopeless for third-party devs on Wii
The biggest competition for a third-party developer on Wii is, obviously, Nintendo. But, that doesn't mean it's hopeless. Ubisoft is just one of the third-party developers that have found success on the console. How? Through strategic and careful planning."We saw that at the end of this year, there were not so many Nintendo products, and we thought there was a window of opportunity," said Ubisoft CFO Alain Martinez at the UBS Global Media Conference this week. "I believe to date, Nintendo is about 30-35 percent market share. So that means if you are aggressive, and if you come up with the right products, you can gain market share there." Because of this, the company expects Shaun White Snowboarding and Raving Rabbids TV Party to sell 1 million and 1.5 million units each, respectively.It's not like Nintendo is making it so that third parties need to wait for the stars and planets to align, however. "Nintendo is surely not making it impossible for people to make good games [on its systems]," Martinez added. "They've been helping us make games. So it's up to us."Of course, this isn't to say that Ubisoft has had nothing but luck with the Wii. They've tried to pile some stinkers on us in the past. But, monkey see, monkey do. The more successful third-party developers are on Wii, the more it attracts others to reach for their own slice of that pie. %Gallery-23883%
GameStop letting the rabbids out of the bag early?
Reader Joshua is one lucky dude. He managed to score a copy of Raving Rabbids TV Party from his local GameStop. Being that they specialize in games, we're surprised to hear about them violating the street date for this title. Sure, it's only a week early, but while Joshua is sitting at home, enjoying his game, we're writing about him enjoying his game. Oh, how we wish we were him!If you're looking to score a copy early, you might want to hit up your local GameStop, as Joshua suggests. They might do the same thing for you. And if you're looking for some video from the game, hit up Joshua's site here.%Gallery-23883%
Rabbids go hog wild with farm equipment
IGN has uploaded a pair of new videos showing off minigames for the upcoming Raving Rabbids TV Party. The video above focuses on the minigame Monster Tractors, which, you guessed it, has you racing around the farm on tractors. Of course, with this being a Raving Rabbids game, it's not your normal tractor race. These are some souped-up tractors of epic proportions racing about in a highly comical fashion. Man, we love those crazy little rabbids.After you check out the video above, head on past the break to see video from the Mega Balls minigame. It's, uh ... weird.%Gallery-23883%
From The Conduit to Call of Duty: New screenshots from Nintendo's media summit
click to embiggen While we can't talk about what we played at today's Nintendo fall media summit in San Francisco (embargoes lift Monday), we were able to snap plenty of pictures from the event, including The Conduit, Dead Rising, Call of Duty: World at War and Animal Crossing. More galleries after the break.%Gallery-33462%
Rabbids discover their heroic side
If there's one thing we don't tolerate, it's rabbid hate. All of the rabbid haters can suck on a lemon, for all we care. And, like previous teaser trailers, this latest one does not disappoint and haters have no grounds to ... well, hate. It's a spoof on the television show Heroes, which is incredibly appropriate given that Raving Rabbids TV Party is doing the spoofing. Better luck next time, little guy!%Gallery-23883%
Excellent games for cheap Wii owners
What's more fun than dropping fifty bucks on a new game? Dropping fifty bucks on three new games. Diverging from their usual retro theme, Racketboy has posted a wonderfully long list of Wii, GameCube, and (obviously) WiiWare games that you can buy for less than $20. While people were busy complaining about the lack of quality third-party Wii games, a bunch of third-party Wii games came out and dropped in price immediately.The list is populated by awesome shooters like Geometry Wars: Galaxies, Blast Works, and Ghost Squad, mascot games like NiGHTS, Sega Superstars Tennis, and Rayman: Raving Rabbids, and Elebits-style games like Elebits. And that's just in the Wii list! Each game also has handy Amazon and eBay search links attached. Go hit the ATM and check out the list!
GC 2008: Ubisoft screenshot roundup
Ubisoft has released beaucoup d'images as part of the media overflow we call Leipzig Games Convention 2008. Below and after the break, check out new galleries of screenshots for Raving Rabbids TV Party, Prince of Persia, EndWar, HAWX, Far Cry 2 and more. It's just like Ubidays, only with no Beyond Good & Evil in sight. Oh, mon Dieu!%Gallery-30166%
