It's often said that a console is only as good as its games - in which case the Wii U's shaping up very nicely indeed. Set to launch later this year, the new home console will already be bringing with it an all new New Super Mario game, a new Wii Fit, and a new LEGO game, in the form of the amazing looking LEGO City Undercover, all of which you'll only be able to play on the Wii U - and now it seems Rayman's keen to join in the fun, with the announcement that Rayman Legends will be a Wii U exclusive.
Rayman Legends is the sequel of sorts to last year's Rayman Origins, and seems to play out in much the same way. A five-player, New Super Mario Bros style co-op platformer, you and up to four friends can expect plenty of lum collecting, baddie bashing, and puzzling goodness, as you leap, swing, and slide your way through the intricately hand-drawn levels. Bringing with it an almost Disney-esque level of animation goodness, Rayman Legends is certainly a very good looking game - but it's much more than just a pretty face.
You can choose who you play as in co-op, too. Our favourite is the lumbering Globox, the loveable Cookie Monster-alike that he is.
Making the most of the same-console multiplayer centric Wii U's features, Rayman Legends allows up to five people to play together - four using standard Wii Remotes, while another uses the tablet-like Wii U Gamepad to control the giant flying green grin, Murphy (pictured above). By making the most of the touch screen, you'll be able to slice your way through ropes, vines, and other obstacles to clear the way through the level, pluck giant turnips from the ground, which the other players can then float on to reach higher ground, and even take out smaller enemies by poking them - or tickling the bigger ones to distract them.
And it's these new, same-console multiplayer modes that are helping the Wii U seem so appealing to us. Letting the whole family play together, either with a parents helping out their kids (or, more likely, a kid helping their parents), these helper characters, also seen in New Super Mario Bros U offer a great way for people of all skills and abilities to play together - kind of like Nintendo did with the Wii and Wii Sports.
With a variety of other tweaks, including some new music themed levels, that see you having to jump in time with a drum, or zip-line during a guitar sustain, meaning you'll need a solid sense of rhythm to beat them, and also the rumblings of the ability to use the Wii U GamePad's crazy scanning capabilities (it apparently has the same technology built into is as oyster readers do) to scan in figurines, unlocking them as bonuses in the game, in a way not too dissimilar to Skylander's Portal of Power, Rayman Legends is certainly shaping up to be one of the brightest stars in the Wii U's line-up. Going head to head with Mario in a fairly similar game, it's going to be interesting to see who'll be the Prince of the Platformers when the Wii U launches later this year. Check out the latest trailer below.
