Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is the third major platform game installment in the Rayman series and the sequel to Rayman 2: The Great Escape. A remastered HD port was later released for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 as Rayman 3 HD.

Plot
The evil Black lum André turns Red lums into black lums by scaring them and forms the army of hoodlums, scarecrow-like monsters controlled by black lums, in order to take over the world. Rayman and Globox soon chase André into the Fairy Council where Globox accidentally swallows the evil Lum.

Rayman must now take Globox to different doctors in order to safely remove André from his friend's stomach while fending off the Hoodlum army who want to rescue their leader through violent means.

On their way to the doctor Rayman runs into the Knaaren species and defeats their champion Reflux. The king of the Knaaren rewards Rayman for his victory with the power of the Leptys, god of the Knaaren. This new power lets Rayman turn Black lums into Red lums again by making them laugh. Using this new ability Rayman starts crippling the Hoodlum army by returning them to normal. However when the doctors finally remove André from Globox he escapes and convinces Reflux to form an alliance to destroy Rayman.

Reflux and André steal the king's scepter and go to the Tower of the Leptys to obtain the god's powers. Once Rayman arrives at the top of the Tower he faces the rebel Knaaren in a rematch. Rayman ultimately defeats and kills Reflux leaving André defenseless against him. Rayman turns André into a Red lum, putting an end to the Hoodlum threat.

A flashback shows that Rayman's hands ran off during the night and scared the Red lum that became André.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) Rayman 3 features a point-based scoring system; a first for the series. The score system offers tons of replay value and tests the player's skills and knowledge of enemy encounters.
 * 2) Rayman's friend Globox is given a much bigger role and accompanies Rayman through the entire game.
 * 3) Rayman 3's levels are more straightforward and oriented towards action and combat rather than platform and exploration. And unlike many combat oriented platformers, the game is still enjoyable and still feels like a platformer thanks to the combat mechanics being well designed.
 * 4) Occasionally you go through on-rails levels with creative and beautiful 1980s visuals. You can even find the USS Enterprise from Star Trek in one of them.
 * 5) The game features sarcastic self-referential undertones and pokes fun at the platform video game genre, which differs from the light-hearted nature of its predecessors.
 * 6) Amazing graphics and detailed environments.
 * 7) Rather than shooting projectile orbs like in the previous game, Rayman returns to shooting his fists to attack enemies like in the first game, which is much more iconic to the character.
 * 8) Funky disco music, with the Hoodoo Sorcerer theme and the Teensie Highway music standing out.
 * 9) "Madder" by Grove Armada is a cool intro theme song.
 * 10) Rayman can now shoot two fists at once, which makes combat much more fluent. It also makes swinging through rings a lot easier.
 * 11) Varied gameplay and levels.
 * 12) Lots of secrets and unlockables including cameos from the previous game and beta content from this game.
 * 13) Instead of permanent upgrades to his abilities, Rayman can now find special "Laser Washing Powder" cans containing one of five temporary power-ups. When Rayman uses this power ups his outfit temporarily changes.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Globox, the Teensies, and Murfy are the only characters from Rayman 2 that appear in person.
 * 2) The stronger focus on combat gameplay can be alienating to fans of the previous two games.
 * 3) The theme song was removed from the HD ports.
 * 4) There's only 9 levels comparing to Rayman 2's 21 levels.
 * 5) The lip-syncing in the game is inconsistent in most cases in the English version, in most cases the lips stop moving but the characters keep talking, however this problem does not occur in the French, Spanish, German, and Italian version of the game as the lip-syncing is much better in those versions.

Reception
Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows versions of the game received aggregated scores of 77, 76, 75 and 74 respectively. On GameRankings, the GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and Windows versions received scores of 78.08%, 80.19%, 76.91% and 78.31% respectively, making it the lowest rated main series Rayman game.

The game's impressive visuals and artistic style received universal praise. Its dialogue, voice acting and humour polarised reviewers, with some praising their wit. The gameplay was generally regarded as solid, but some criticized the game for focusing on combat and timer-based puzzles rather than platform.

This game is usually considered the black sheep of the Rayman series, despite that it is still regarded as a great game. Rayman's creator Michel Ancel wasn't directly involved in the game's development and said that while he liked the game, it was "a bit too concrete for [his] tastes", and that he "would have made the game differently".

Game Tips

 * 1) Every five times you score points within the same combo chain, the combo points you get are doubled. Take advantage of this to score large amounts of points; for example grab five coins before killing an enemy.
 * 2) The first time you score points doesn't count towards combos so it's best to start a combo chain by scoring the lowest points available, usually grabbing a common coin.
 * 3) Combo chains last three seconds after grabbing a coin and six seconds after killing an enemy.
 * 4) Plan your attack strategy carefully when going into a combat section to maximize combo chains.