Rayman 3 - Hoodlum Havoc is a harmless arcade game that involves the ever-popular gloved one and his bouncing, punching adventures.

This eye-candy world definitely tries hard to please, from its non-stop running comic dialogue to John Leguizamo as Globox, with its wide range of interesting landscapes. There are many different stages, each with its own items to collect and gather.

Scores tally up how many combos you do and how your scouring of the level went - you can always replay an area to look for more goodies and work on those combos. A glowing arrow always keeps you going in the right direction, and cut scenes move the rather simplistic plot along.

The asides of your flying buddy, Murphy, can be quite funny. He makes fun of the manual, Star Wars, other games, and just about everything else along the way. Sometimes his wit is laugh-out-loud on the mark. At other times, the humor sinks into the "Oooooh he belched, that's so funny!" arena. So you get the bad with the good.

I found the camera on the annoying side, and think they could have done much better with it. And while I did enjoy how they tossed other types of challenges into the game - at one point you slide down strips a la Frequency with boppy music playing, for example - the game in general was extremely unidirectional. You knew exactly what you had to do, and just had to figure out how to get there.

I enjoyed this, but being a HUGE fan of Ratchet and Clank, I missed the more wide-open gameplay of that game. Rayman 3 was fun, but not a thrilling game that I played for hours non stop. Still, with Rayman 3 selling for such little money, it's worth grabbing and having fun for a weekend with.

Buy Rayman 3 from Amazon.com