E3 2011: Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking First Impressions Preview

Those kooky rabbids have already traveled to the moon and journeyed through time, leaving their mark on history. During Ubisoft's press conference at E3 2011, we learned that the nutty creatures are now planning their greatest conquest yet: your living room.

Antoine Henry of Ubisoft Paris took to the stage during today's press conference to demonstrate the uncontainable, irrepressible rabbids' first Kinect title, Raving Rabbids: Alive & Kicking. Henry stood in a small mock living room, with a couch and a purple rug on the floor. As Henry started talking about the game, he was interrupted by a rabbid, and projected on the screen behind him was a rabbid standing in front of him and mocking him. Henry stepped forward and smacked the area where the rabbid appeared to be standing with his hand, and the force of the blow made the rabbid fly off the screen.

Henry tried to resume his spiel but was soon interrupted again. This time Henry responded to the affront by delivering a swift forward kick, sending the rude rabbid straight into the camera. The rabbids were not so easily defeated, though, and several soon appeared to emerge straight out of the rug much like moles do in a Whac-a-Mole game. Henry began stepping on the rabbids but more kept emerging, and he soon called for help. A colleague emerged from backstage to assist Henry with the rabbid outbreak, and after several seconds of stomping on the creatures' heads, as well as one point at which Henry's friend was lying down on the ground and flailing about with his arms and legs, the insanity subsided.

Henry then talked about how Alive & Kicking uses the Kinect's augmented-reality capabilities to place the rabbids in your living room. After mentioning that the game allows up to four players to play simultaneously, he was joined by two more friends, bringing the total number of people onstage to four. Henry explained that the game they were about to demonstrate was called Fill the Shapes. A silhouette of a huge sumo wrestler appeared onscreen, and the four players contorted their bodies to fill the shape. Their success was cheered by a number of spectating rabbids. The players then had to fill the shapes of a UFO and of a vampire. After each success, the game took a snapshot and showed the absurd configuration that the players worked themselves into to fill the shapes. Henry closed the demo by mentioning that these photos could be shared with friends on Facebook and that the game was scheduled for release on November 8.

The zany rabbids seem like a perfect fit for a goofy, physical party game, and with modes like Fill the Shapes, it appears that Alive & Kicking may break out of the typical party game mold and include some fresh new ways to take advantage of the Kinect. Stay tuned to GameSpot for more details about what additional silliness Alive & Kicking has in store.