Over the last year, UK mom ("mum" is the word over there, we believe) Gaye Herford has been fighting to change the way games are tested before they are sent to retail. Her 10-year-old son, while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids, went into an epileptic fit. She had no idea that games could send players intophoto sensitive epileptic (PSE) seizures. We guess she hasn't seen the intro splash screen Nintendo has had around since the Pokémon incident.
But, after a long year, she has won her battle. Ubisoft has volunteered to do the testing itself and will try to ensure such a thing does not happen again. Herford also managed to secure a debate in Parliament, for a future date that is yet to be determined. "As a parent myself, I was shocked that a single game could possibly trigger a sudden first-time seizure, with its life-long implications," says Weston-super-Mare MP John Penrose, who helped Herford in her battle. "Right now, most electronic game publishers simply issue written warnings about PSE on or inside their products - and that's on a voluntary basis. But that's no good for the thousands of people with dormant PSE because they don't know the warnings - if they even read them - apply to them."
At the time of the article, no comment was made by Nintendo. Ubisoft did say, though, that testing of Rayman: Raving Rabbids on the DS "showed that no images posed a high risk for photosensitivity epilepsy. However, we made a corporate decision to pre-screen and pre-test all Ubisoft in-house developed games regardless of platform, prior to publication."
Despite the fact that the firsttwo games appeared on the DS, the Rayman Raving Rabbids series has always been more closely associated with the Wii, either because the original was a Wii launch game, or because the DS iterations are pretty mediocre.
Now, the involvement of the Balance Board is threatening to relegate the DS edition of Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party to an even more insignificant footnote, but we hope the DS game stands on its own. The Rabbids are liked by pretty much everybody we know, and deserve a worthy handheld game. Protip though, Ubisoft: it's probably best to avoid this kind of publicity.
When we turned on our Wii earlier to check and see if the recent habit of providing us with new DS demos every week would continue, we stumbled upon something very odd. You see, this week's new DS demos are, in fact, the first set of DS demos that released alongside the Nintendo Channel. Just now, they don't have an expiration date attached to them.
For those of you with a bad memory (or no desire to click links), the list of demos available has been placed past the break.
After a boy in the UK fell into an epileptic fit from playing Rayman Raving Rabbids on the DS, his mother, Gaye Herford, protested to Parliament that there should be more vigorous safety testing for video games. Should her campaign be successful, any games that could potentially cause seizures will be banned in the UK and game developers will have to adhere to stricter safety standards. Currently, thirty-five Members of Parliament stand behind the proposal.
Ubisoft (the makers of Rabbids) responded by saying that the company already pre-screened Rabbids DS for the potential to cause epileptic fits, and the testing showed that the game was unlikely to do so. Managing director of Ubisoft UK Robert Cooper added, however, that the company has made the decision to now test all in-house games prior to release.
While some of those crazy rabbids might not know what to do with a DS (we guess it could be a weapon, if you throw it hard enough), others are more informed in the ways of stylus-fu. And, based on the footage above, one will have to be adept in the art form as the game will demand plenty of tasks be completed with stylus in hand. It looks fun though, we must admit, so we're glad Ubisoft decided to go Nintendo-exclusive with the sequel here.
We featured a lot of trailers yesterday, but we admit that perhaps we overlooked one important slice of footage: the above trailer for Rayman Raving Rabbids 2. Now a Nintendo exclusive, the game will only be appearing on the DS and Wii, which were the best versions of that game if you ask us. And looking at this montage of gameplay above, the second title should be another stellar game.
[Note: The link over at IGN's video portal is kinda funny, so you might have some difficulty getting to their video directly. We suggest you just enjoy the embedded video above.]
Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
We're cheating a little with this week's ad, as the primary focus of the Rayman Raving Rabbids series has been on the Wii. Keep in mind, though, that Ubisoft promises to make RRR 2 for the DS more like its console counterpart, emphasizing multiplayer party games over platforming, so we're not completely gypping you on this one. Hop past the break to continue.
Posted Mar 15th 2007 7:00PM by Eric Caoili
Filed under: News
While we can't say much about the quality of Rayman Raving Rabbids DS yet, we're more than happy to sing the praises of Ubisoft's marketing behind the recently-released platformer. The France-based company sent out three promotional images showing the game's villains, crazed and deranged rabbits, in various states of distress.
A couple of new screens for the upcoming DS installment of Rayman: Raving Rabbids have hit the internet, revealing a game that is very much guaranteed to be chock full of platforming action and just as good as its Wii cousin (we're calling it folks). Although we would've liked more screens, we'll take what we can get. We've gone ahead and embedded the screens into the post, past the break.
Crazy, crack-addict-like bunnies (er, rabbids) are threatening the world and our limbless hero, Rayman, is going to save our butts. He was originally only going to come to the rescue of those owning a Nintendo Wii. Just in case a Wii can't be purchased (even though we know you all are going to get one, right?), Ubisoft has announced that Rayman Raving Rabbids (try saying that five times fast) will also be available on the Nintendo DS.
This also makes us question how Raving Rabbids will work on the DS. Stylus punching furry tails action? Or just plain 'ol directional pad plus ABXY?
Over the last year, UK mom ("mum" is the word over there, we believe) Gaye Herford has been fighting to change the way games are tested before they are sent to retail. Her 10-year-old son, while playing Rayman Raving Rabbids, went into an epileptic fit. She had no idea that games could send players into photo sensitive epileptic (PSE) seizures. We guess she hasn't seen the intro splash screen Nintendo has had around since the Pokémon incident.
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