I recently got Ubisoft's new game Rayman: Origins for the Xbox 360. Here are my quick thoughts after playing through one world of gameplay.

* Crazy and funny opening cinematic to explain story...if there is one. Rayman and his buddies seem to be snoring too loud, and this angers an old grandma who unleashes baddies all over the world. Rayman eats a lot to while sleeping. The gibberish talking really adds to the charm of this game.

* Graphics are very colorful, and there's lots of detail in the foreground. Backgrounds are gorgeous. A perfect example of 2D platformer in a 3D world.

* Saving those little pink balls with ponytails, or electoons, is crazy fun. Gotta beat up on old grandmas to save them. Awesome.

* Being just a 2D platformer, the levels so far are surprisingly long. You want to collect as many lums as you can to complete each level's electoon medallion, so that will keep things busy. My one complaint about the newer 2D Mario games are the short levels. Rayman has that beat for sure.

*Controls are responsive. Not too difficult so far, but this is just the first world. I expect that to ramp up later on.

Rayman: Origins is available for the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii.

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