Roger Rabbit in Hare Raising Havoc
Not enough havoc
Roger Rabbit had his five minutes of fame back in the late eighties, with the release of the massively popular and highly acclaimed animated /live action movie. When any film gets the kind of success this one did, it's fairly predictable that a game tie-in will follow and while this one isn't related directly to the movie, it does take the character of Roger and bring him to the small screen. However, it does so with little in the way of imagination or fun and the result is a fairly tedious and uninteresting game which is lacking in humour or fun. The premise here is that Roger, the talking rabbit if you're unfamiliar with the character, is stuck in a house and must recapture Baby Herman before Mommy returns home. Gameplay takes the form of a series of single screens, where Roger must make use of various objects lying around each room to solve puzzles and thus open up the door to the next room. These puzzles require you to pull, push, jump and kick the objects so that they interact with other items in the room and will see you swinging on overhead fans, playing tricks on goldfish and other such activities. Everything is played out in typical cartoon style, and while the visuals are certainly bright and appealing in the most appropriate way, the gameplay lacks much in the way of long term appeal. Things start out reasonably well and it's quite fun experimenting with things to find out what happens but it soon goes wrong, with a slow moving main character that is frustrating to move and which reduces the fun factor considerably. This isn't a terrible game and if you're a fan of the character, it's worth a look but don't expect anything earth shattering.
Zany adventure with Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman
I guess this game will mostly speak and make sense for those that have lived on the Roger Rabbit cartoons. Roger is a more snide and zany character than Bugs Bunny, much more eager to cause trouble and to find himself in situations that Bugsy would know better not to get into. In this adventure here, Roger has to take care of the little troublemaker that is Baby Herman, toddler that can barely crawl but can really put himself in uncannily dangerous situations without a thing happening to him, but making the world whirl and go crazy! Well, at any rate, Hare Raising Havoc puts you in a situation where most of your activities will be your regular (rather casual and really easy, suited for children) adventure game shenanigans, from the likes of finding the suitable objects to propel you to your next quest, to logic puzzles and the regular, less straightforward puzzles of adventure gaming. The graphical presentation and the sounds and music work just right for the recipe, being cartoony and the music silly and childish. But it sure is a lot of fun to play with kids around! For another colorful and unassuming adventure for kids, see Sesame Street: Get Set To Learn, more of an edutainment package than Havoc but fun nonetheless.
Roger Rabbit themed puzzle platformer
Roger Rabbit in Hare Raising Havoc plays out like a trigger based adventure. You have to use different objects at the right time, you have to find the right sequence of events to put in motion different activities, to move on to the next level. This is done in sidescroller fashion, by moving Roger left and right and by activating the different pieces of scenery that are scattered around. The game works just fine, but at times the logic of the puzzles will escape you and thus it will be harder to understand what needs to be done. But, with just enough trial and error, it will become clearer sooner rather than later, and you will be moving on rather fast to your next target. The graphic theme of the game is a cartoony, colorful one, which works perfectly for the kind of puzzles you are set to solve and furthermore, the game is never too hard to begin with. The speed of Roger might not please you, at times, as he moves rather slow and lazily, but even that will sink with you, after a while.
