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The Price:
  • $20
The Pros:
  • Nice graphics
  • Good game play

The Cons:
  • BIG program
  • Conduit takes awhile to sync
  • Runs slowly on color

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Rayman Review
By Pepper
9/25/2001


Overview
Rayman is an old action game which has spread across multiple platforms and has finally reached the Palm OS. Unfortunately, Rayman has also become the Palm OS's biggest example of bloatware

Game Play
Rayman, like many other games, has a very simple yet unique story line. You are Rayman - a strange guy who is basically a collection of floating body parts. His quest in life is pretty simple - stay alive. More specifically, Rayman needs to free the toons and kill Mister Dark.

Along the way, Rayman makes several friends, and has a few enemies to deal with. The friends are mainly inanimate objects like plums and trumpets, but the enemies are more vicious things like piranhas and bats. All of these enemies hurt Rayman, but he can use his friends to help him get out of some tricky situations.

But game play isn't based solely on characters and plot line, a lot of it has to do with actually playing the game. Well, Rayman uses the six keys on the bottom of the Palm with a tap on the screen to pause. In fact only six buttons can be used - the power button is disabled! So, if you wanna stop to talk to someone during a game you're just going to need to leave it running or ignore the person you want to talk to.

On color units, the game runs sluggish but it is still perfectly playable. Although climbing a vine may seem like a chore that takes forever, all of the other characters have slowed down too. I'm not sure whether this speed makes the game easier or too obnoxious to play. One solution to this problem is overclocking, but I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of over-working my processor to enjoy a game a little more. Monochrome devices run smoothly without overclocking, but that of course has its drawbacks too.

Graphics
One really important part of a game is the graphics. If a game uses poor graphics, it can really take away from the excitement.

On the color, Rayman has pretty decent graphics. There are dark scenes that seem full of evil and bright scenes that are as cheery as a summer day. The game makes a nice use of backgrounds that add to the game without being cluttersome. Although the graphics may seem a bit cartoonish, I think that's the point.

On greyscale, the graphics aren't quite as nice. When Rayman is just standing there, looking at you, the graphics certainly aren't bad for monochrome. But when Rayman starts to move, you lose any hopes of actually seeing what is happening. The graphics disappear into a hopeless blur. With a little fiddling of your contrast, you can get it to a playable level. If you have an on-screen contrast bar, you will need to exit the program every time you try to adjust the contrast.

Odds and Ends
Aside from the big things like game play and graphics, there are a few things in the program that should be mentioned. Most notable on this list is the huge size. Rayman takes up an amazing 1.7 megs! Unfortunately, there isn't yet a version that is compatible with SD cards, and if you try to run off of SD you will soon find yourself performing a reset.

Another item worthy of being mentioned is the registration process. It is four steps that involve restarting your computer, launching programs, and logging onto their website.

Also worth stating is the conduit. Rayman, like many other add-ons, has a conduit which greatly adds to the Hot Sync time. I've found that Rayman takes nearly as long to sync as AvantGo.

Conclusion
Rayman is a good game, but some details need to be worked out before I would pay $20 for it. Mainly, either SD support or a smaller size. Until I see this happen, I wont be playing Rayman because it just doesn't fit.

Update: I've just heard from someone at LUDIpocket who said there will be a patched version, with SD card and Memory Stick support, ready in two weeks. This upgrade will be free to everone who already owns the game. -Ed

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Nice Review - Spot on!

kevdo @ 9/25/2001 2:13:05 PM #
I too found it slow and sluggish. The RAM issues and conduit issues are also troublesome. Worse, the demo version doesn't let you know how much RAM this thing will take up -- a hassle during the install if you don't have enough RAM and if you aren't aware of the gigantic proportions.

Rayman on Handera.... Doesn't Work

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 2:43:01 PM #
I've had no luck running Rayman on my Handera 330. According to Ludigames they
have no plans in the immediate future to support the QVGA format.

RE: Rayman on Qcp 6035.... Doesn't Work
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 7:06:42 PM #
I wasn't able to get it to run on my 6035 either, seems they've only designed it to run on Sonys

RE: Rayman on Handspring.... Eats batteries quick
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 1:48:50 AM #
I tried on a Visor Platinum, speed was good but contrast was bad. You need to set your contrast very high to appreciate the game. But to my surprise after I played for a minute, my batteries were at 50% from 90%! =(

Just my 2 cents!

RE: Rayman on Handera.... Doesn't Work
I.M. Anonymous @ 1/10/2002 1:17:10 PM #
I got it to work on the 6035 with the latest bits. I could not find a way to pause/quit for it seems to disable the the touch screen and non buttons (as in you can't quit the game unless you exit via the menu).

Also the menu was very odd and I do not know if that is the way it is on all but the navigation sucked and was so odd that I almost thought it hung rather than was functional. But all in all it looks good.

Way too slow.

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 2:59:50 PM #

This game is just way too slow to be playable, even on an M505, which uses the fastest processor available.

RE: Way too slow.
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 3:28:17 PM #
? On my m505 game runs very good. Maby you have some hacks in the system.

RE: Way too slow.
kevdo @ 9/25/2001 3:51:46 PM #
Count me in the "have an m505 with no hacks running" but who still finds it really slow (at least the demo version was...)

RE: Way too slow.
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 4:48:20 PM #
Anyone tried this on a Clie. I assume it should
have better performance, since it has a separate
dsp for the screen.

RE: Way too slow.
kevdo @ 9/25/2001 7:15:43 PM #
the m505 also has a separate chip for the screen also.

Runs just fine on my Clie N610
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 9:57:53 PM #
I gave up on my m505 about a month ago - no regrets so far...

RE: Way too slow.
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 2:32:12 AM #
on my clie n 710 runs fast and good!

reviewer is off the mark

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 3:40:34 PM #
I'm surprised at all of these comments. The game runs great on my clie 710c and I have no problem running it off of my memory stick. I'm also surprised by the reviewers comment that the graphics are ok. These are by far the most sophisticated graphics we've seen for the palm os, a pretty good reason for the large size. It looks like the reviewer isn't much of a fan of these types of games, palm info center should screen its reviewers a bit better or risk misleading reviews like this.

RE: reviewer is off the mark
Pepper @ 9/25/2001 3:58:05 PM #
I've been playing this game on an m500 and an m505, so I didn't get a chance to try it on a Sony Clie. It may run more smoothly because of the added graphics controler or perhaps you are running an overclocking utility

The memory card issue is with OS 4's handeling of memory cards. If you use utilities like MSmount you can probably get it to work fine. When I wrote this, the Rayman didnt naturaly support memory cards, but there was supposed to be a version coming soon which would.

I agree the graphics are really nice, but there is almost always room for improvement.

As for eing a fan of these types of games, I loved Rayman on the PC. When I heard about this game I was really excited, but the large size mad it more of a headache then I was anticipating. Rayman is a very good game, I just feel it has a few issues to be worked out

-Pepper

I love my Palm . . . do you?

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 4:58:33 PM #
No, not really anymore because one of my lines quit on my IIIxe (but it's at the side) so my screen res is 160x150 now. I know it is a loose connection 'cause I took my Palm apart and took out the screen but I plugged back in (loosely, I guess).

I see a whole new market of classic computer games. If not computer games, try video games. The Sega Genesis ran at about 4 Mhz even though it was 16-bits (the Palm is 8-bits) , I think modern palms can run such stuff.

-Palm Pilot Guy



RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 5:17:07 PM #
I tried this game on my Prism. Its playable, but slow. I wish i didnt hate sony's MS, plus the fact that I already spent $500+ on springboards, I would buy a Clie just for the fact that it will run scrolling games better than any current palm device.

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 6:45:28 PM #
I'll second the observation that it works fine on the 710c. Just make sure to turn off HiRes!

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 6:49:05 PM #
Rayman runs great on my clie 710c. I didn't get it work with the memory stick yet. So if anyone know how to run it off the MS please inform. Thank you.

RE: reviewer is off the mark
Davy @ 9/25/2001 7:39:49 PM #
Hmmm.... I personally run this game off the MMC card, using Silverscreen's VFS system. It takes a couple seconds (about 5), to load all the way, but when it does, it plays fine. I'm not sure what's going on with everything, but it works with mine just fine.

-Davy

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 8:05:17 PM #
>>
The Sega Genesis ran at about 4 Mhz even though it was 16-bits (the Palm is 8-bits)
<<

I *wish* people would stop spouting off information about Palm organizers (and for that matter, other technical information) without knowing a lick about what they're talking about.

Motorola's MC68328 "DragonBall" processor is (and always has been) a hybrid 16- and 32-bit processor, incorporating 32-bit external and internal address buses and a 16-bit on-chip data bus. It *has never been* an 8-bit processor.

And, lest someone start talking about Palm OS being an 8- or 16-bit OS, the Palm OS kernel (originally supplied by Kadak) is indeed a full 32-bit OS. It's just hobbled in this iteration because of licensing agreements.

I know this sounds like flaming, and frankly, it is. I'm so sick of seeing all these stupid myths about the Palm platform floating around the 'Net.
"Palm has a 8-bit processor."
"Palm OS isn't a 32-bit OS."
"Palm isn't compatible with Office apps."
"Palm apps are harder to program since they're programmed in assembler."

GET A CLUE!

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/25/2001 9:02:25 PM #
Yeah, the Genesis had separate Sound, Graphics chips.. whole different architechture.. and it was built for video games... so It's sort of hard to compare it to a Palm, but I see where you're coming from. Btw, anyone remember "blast processing"? I was in second grade at the time and I totally bought into that :)
-Shoryu (soon to be registered, on a CLIE right now..)

RE: reviewer is off the mark
Kaitou @ 9/25/2001 11:03:10 PM #
Runs like greased lightning on my N710C, but how did you get it to run of the card?

RE: reviewer is off the mark
Altema @ 9/26/2001 12:05:33 AM #
I think Pepper is pretty much on the mark, her experience was similar to mine, althought I thought the graphics were real good. I would like to see this game on a Clie though, as I've seen consistent postings about it running at normal speed on those models. Both devices (Clie/Palm) run dedicated video controllers, and I've seen some apps run better on one device, and some run better on the other. It would be interesting to find out the technical reasons. I actually thought the game speed was OK... until I grabbed one of my kids' Gameboy. FastCPU more than made up the difference, but it does seem as if the coding of the game itself is not as efficient as it could be in it's animation routines. There are a couple of other games that have more intense screen animation, and cannot be overclocked because it makes the game too fast to play. I contacted LudiGames, and the Project Manager herself replied back that they designed Rayman to run from RAM because that is the way most people used their apps, and also because of their internet game conduit. I hope they find a way around this, because the new devices with expansion are beginning to outnumber those without. Expansion was the only reason I moved from the IIIc, and I would not have had the room for this game anyways.

PS: Don't worry about the overclocking, you can run the 505 at 50Mhz without problems, even though that makes Rayman run a little TOO fast. I don't bother with overclocking on 99% of my apps (how much faster than instant do you want?), but this game needed something extra to liven up the game play. All you've got to lose is your battery life!

RE: reviewer is off the mark
He||Raiser @ 9/26/2001 12:05:45 AM #
Err... I'd like to point out that IMHO that when you blasted "Palm Pilot Guy" for saying "The Sega Genesis ran at about 4 Mhz even though it was 16-bits (the Palm is 8-bits)", I think you misunderstood him. My interpretation of his statement was that he was referring to the complexity of the graphics, not the data bus size of the processor. I think you flamed the guy a little harshly. Try reading and seeing things from other angles before getting so riled...

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 10:50:23 AM #
When I wrote this comment I forgot to mention that I was using silverscreen to run the game off of my MS. It seems that the combo of Clie and Silverscreen is the way to go if you want to run this game.

And yes, I do love my palm.

RE: reviewer is off the mark
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 11:37:52 AM #
I have trouble to understand how u can both say :
- 'Although the graphics may seem a bit cartoonish, I think that's the point.'
and :
- 'I loved Rayman on the PC'

If u have played the PC version, u can nothing but know that Rayman's universe is definitely a cartoon one. So why do u say 'I think that's the point' ? of course it is ! so why 'Although' ???

It's like saying 'Although Tom & jerry seem a bit funny, I think that's the point'.

Ran okay in my 3c

EdwardGreen @ 9/26/2001 3:24:09 AM #
Hmm, its a little slow but runs fine on my Palm 3c, although I am running OS 4 which may speed things up. I have no overclocking apps, as my poor 3c won't overclock anyway (it's old and sad!).

I agree it is a memory Hog, but then so are most "big" Palm games - Ancient Red, V-Rally, etc etc. I don't expect to be able to keep every PC Game I own on my HD, why should I expect to keep every Palm game in RAM?

I keep games on my Flash Plug and if I'm away, sitting in a hotel room and I want to play V-Rally or Ancient Red I copy them into Ram and play them.

-
kHiTeDev

NICE GAME BUT..........

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 9:17:48 AM #
This is a great example of how the Palm OS platform is catching up to PPC in terms of graphics. This runs great on my CLIE 610 but it just takes up too much memory plus you can't run it off the memory stick.

ZZZzzzz

I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 11:29:42 AM #
Another reason not to buy a palm

RE: ZZZzzzz
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/26/2001 1:59:06 PM #
OR the perfect reason to buy a Palm. Do you play games on your PDA or get something useful accomplished?

Palm = easier to get things accomplished but harder to play games.

PocketPC = easier to play games but harder to get things accomplished.

Macs?

Amorya @ 9/27/2001 2:39:46 PM #
The major disadvantage is a mac user can't register this program!!! The demo runs fine on my palm, but I can't have the full game at all!

Amorya

Rayman got Palmtop-Pro Awardet
I.M. Anonymous @ 9/28/2001 1:36:16 AM #
We tested Rayman on Palm IIIc and on m505. The game runs smoothly and is an experience as far as could be as on the PC and got from our editorial office highest appraisals. Our editors awarded "Rayman" in a secret cast in our editorial office as official bearer of the big
"Palmtop-Pro Approved Award"
See: http://www.palmtop-pro.com/seal/seal_rayman.htm
That’s the highest mark we can give to a program as this award is usually reserved for professional solutions only .
German readers find "Tricks and Tips" to Rayman in the upcoming hardcopy Palmtop-Pro Magazine edition 26 due on 13.11.2001
That Macintosh Users cannot play the game in full is the only drawback we could find and is really a shame. But always there´s hope...
Boris Michael v. Luhovoy
Publishing editor
Palmto-Pro Magazine
www.palmtop.at


Rayman and Expansion Cards

Ed @ 9/28/2001 9:18:16 AM #
I've just heard from someone at LUDIpocket who said there will be a patched version, with SD card and Memory Stick support, ready in two weeks. This upgrade will be free to everone who already owns the game.

---
News Editor

Peppers version of Rayman...

I.M. Anonymous @ 10/24/2001 12:11:22 PM #
may i comment that pepper used a cracked version of Rayman!! even though it took her forever to find the serial, she did get it going.

RE: Peppers version of Rayman...
Ed @ 10/24/2001 12:34:51 PM #
I arranged with the LUDIgames people to get her a licence so she could do this review. They actually sent us two, both of which she used. I know she had a lot of problems getting registered but she did have permission from the company.

---
News Editor
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