Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Man - talk about a "Great Old Game"! Rayman 2 is easily one of the best 3D platformers ever made. And thanks to it's stylized, cartoony visuals and fantastic design, it holds up well after it originally came out. It's not quite a perfect 3d translation of the original Rayman - it adds many new characters, Rayman now shoots energy instead of throws his hands, etc. - but it's all for the better. This is a must play game. The thing that makes it so good, besides it's excellent core game (the jump, hover, combat and other moves all just feel perfect - play this with a controller though) is it's variety. This is the Half-Life 2 of platformers for it's time; just a ton of disparate, unique moments that are constantly changing and are constantly fun. This is not a Mario 64-style game, where they just dump you in a 3D level and task you with gathering doodads. This is a level-by-level experience, and each level tasks you with something unique to do. There are races (atop animated rockets, no less), swimming challenges, boss battles, chases, puzzle sequences, levels with partner characters -- very little is ever repeated too. And while you'll get plenty of time to just explore levels, there are plenty unique, memorable moments to punctuate the levels. It's really quite brilliant, and is astounding to find a game that pulls it off so well before games like Half-Life 2, Resident Evil 4 and Gears of War; games that also put a premium on unique "moment-to-moment" single player flow. The visuals and controls are lovely, and the design is top-notch. The only thing that doesn't achieve greatness is the actual world itself. The robot pirates are fine enemies, but pretty much all of Rayman's friends are stupid. Globox is infamously one of the dumbest character designs ever made, but Ly the Fairy and the little dudes at the beginning aren't anything to write home about either. Still, compared to how bad Rayman has gotten (Rayman 3 is far worse, and Rayman Origins only looks to push the stupidity further), it's fine here in R2. The rest of the world - with that lush, European cartoon style - is charming enough to make up for it. This is a fantastic game and a must play for $6. Easily the highlight of the Rayman series, and - before the Mario Galaxies, Jak & Daxters and Sly Coopers of the world came out - the pinnacle of 3D platformers. Thank you GOG and Ubi Soft!

Still great to come back to from time to time for a hit of nostalgia. GOG version works fine out of the box but add Ray2Fix to the mix and you got controller and widescreen support, and vsync to fix any weird speed issues.

Instant nostalgia buy for how fun the game was back then! Word of warning, might have issues launching. For me it kept going fullscreen with tiny resolution with laggy mouse input, to tabbed out doing cycles of a couple of seconds each side taking a good couple of minutes to get to the title screen. Checked the support forum with no luck so unfortunately not going to be played again unless it's shipped to be playable without having to scour the internet for fixes to get it to work.

I recommend this game as a example of an old, but still solid and amazing game. It is very good in 2020 and I can't image how amazing this game was in 1999! There is one bug, but it's very easy to fix. The error occurs in "Sanctuary of Fire and Stone", which is a level appr. at 45% stage of the game. There is only one chance to beat Umber (the boss) in that level. You have to jump from his head to reach the shore after lava river and the problem is you have only one chance. So if you miss that, you're pretty much doomed and you have to repeat the whole level (or kill yourself by jumping to lava river, so you will repeat much less of the level). How to fix the bug? 3 easy steps: 1. Open the game folder 2. Choose "nglide_config" 3. Change "refresh rate" from 144 to 120Hz and it's done! Now it would be nicer and easier. Only two disadvantages in this game. Keyboard sensivity is a drama and camera work is a comedy. Beside that, if you want to play adventure game, that is not easy, but there is a lot of also, I recommend you this game. My rating (0-10): 8, so it means this is very good game.

Rayman 2 : The great escape is the first game i ever played. He isn't perfect, the camera is crazy sometimes and you can't save your progression through a level so you must do it in one shot. But this game is great, really an enjoyable platformer 3D. The level design is well done, you don't get bored one second. Controls are flawless. In terms of graphics, there are nice for a game of is time. A must play if you like 3D platormers.