As much as I want to expel the air in my lungs straight into Michel Ancel's eardrums in an effort to make him develop Beyond Good & Evil 2, you can't blame him for wanting to prioritise the continued success of Ubisoft's greatest mascot instead. Stuff Ezio and Altaïr - Rayman is the true flag-flier for one of gaming's biggest studios. The character's 1995 debut into an industry already heavily congested by platformers (AKA: the golden age of Mario and Sonic) was the 90s equivalent of trying to establish a new FPS in the face of the juggernaut-sized Call Of Duty or Halo, à la Titanfall. Despite the total financial disaster that many expected, Rayman gave a floating middle finger to all the naysayers who doubted his ability to become a bonafide video game icon popular enough to rival both Nintendo's Italian Plumber and Sega's Blue Blur. If you haven't already given 2010's Rayman Origins a whirl, go and get it right now and start helicopter-spinning your way to victory. Rayman may not have any arms or legs, but who needs 'em when you can use your hair to fly?
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
