Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a great improvement over the previous entries in the franchise and it isn't to be overlooked.
Rayman's world is about to change for the worse (again). The friendly red lums that are scattered throughout his world have started to become evil dark lums. They plan on taking over, but of course Rayman is going to stop them. However, Rayman's friend, Globox, has accidentally swallowed the original dark lum. Rayman needs to find a doctor that can get it out of his stomach and then put a stop to it. The game never delves too much into the story outside of the occasional cutscene of a doctor looking over Globox. Thankfully, it's not needed to be enjoyable.
As I mentioned before, the underlying gameplay of the previous entries is still there. Rayman will take on various obstacles during his journey that he'll have to get across. You'll be doing the standard platforming thing like climbing walls and jumping over platforms. But this time, there are different kinds of cans strewn throughout the world. These cans will alter Rayman's appearance enabling him to do things he couldn't normally do without. One will give him the power to fly for a short period of time. Another one will give him a tornado power that can knock down certain pillars. Another one still will give him the ability to latch onto the hooks present in the levels. Although there are a couple of other powers, these are the ones that you'll probably be using the most. They all work fine and they make for some good puzzles.
As for the combat, it's practically unchanged from the previous game. You will be able to shoot blasts from your fists and charge them up for greater damage. This time however, there are no upgrades that you'll need to purchase for things like rapid fire. It's readily available to you from the start of the game. You can also still lock onto your enemies and circle them to avoid their fire. Thankfully, the camera isn't controlled with R1 and L1 as it was in the previous incarnation. You can control it with the standard left analog stick and it works great. This completely fixes the awkward camera from Rayman 2. In that game, the camera never gave you the best viewpoint and even when you controlled it, it never seemed to give you the look you wanted. The camera in this game still has a few hiccups here and there, but it's greatly improved in this iteration.
Switching up the gameplay a bit, there are a couple of mini-games that you'll have to partake in through your quest. One has you shrunk down to a miniature size, small enough to fit inside your own shoe. You will have to drive it around and catch your other shoe to progress. What the significance of this is, I have no clue, but it's a nice break from the action regardless. There is also a track shooting mission later in the game. Globox will be piloting the ship and you'll have to shoot down the enemies charging from behind. Neither of these mechanics are amazing and they're not fleshed out enough to be too much fun, but they're so brief that it doesn't matter.
The unlockables are pretty much what you'd expect from a game like this. By finding and breaking cages in the levels, you can unlock bonus movies and mini-games. The movies are quite humorous. They are training videos for the enemies in the game giving them strategies to defeat Rayman. The mini-games on the other hand, aren't particularly anything amazing. There are a few, like one where you have to bounce from balloon to balloon picking up cans to traverse a long distance without falling, that are quite fun and ingenious. But the majority of them are either lame or too hard. There is a tennis game that is completely unplayable and even if you manage to get past the lousy mechanics, it's hard to aim and get it past your opponent. One game, which is (admittedly) very cool, is a 2D side scrolling game exactly like the original game. It's just as colorful and fun as the original, but it also has the original's blistering difficulty. I didn't spend too much time on it, so it could be a lot easier than I'm making it out to be, but it just didn't seem fair. Like in the main game, the enemies spawn out of nowhere, so if you're moving quickly and one pops up in front of you and you can't stop in time, you're dead. And good luck getting past multiple enemies. It's a great addition and a thankful nod to the original game, but it should have been more toned down and enjoyable.
The graphics have greatly improved from Rayman 2. The previous game came out during the beginning of the Playstation 2 lifespan and you can definitely tell. It didn't look all that great and the frame rate chugged constantly. Fortunately, in this game it's much prettier and easier on the eyes. It's also not nearly as sluggish as the last game. The graphics definitely could have used a little cleaning up, but after the quite ugly previous game, this one was eye candy.
Featuring the completely unnecessary celebrity voice talent from John Leguizamo, the voice acting is the low point of the sound. Rayman still sounds like a dork and Leguizamo did nothing to bring Globox beyond the point of annoying. If anything, he sent him backwards to unbearable. The Teensies that you'll free during the game are also rather annoying with their high pitched voices. There are a few redeeming voices, but the majority of them aren't that great. Everything else sounded like a typical platforming game, mediocre and nothing more.
It's not often that I think the best game in the series is the third installment. More often than not, I'll think the original game is the best. Sometimes the second game will win my respect if the first one didn't, but by the third game I either 1) think the series hasn't changed one bit and needs to evolve or 2) think that the series has changed too much and forgot about it's roots. In this case however, I believe each subsequent game has corrected the major faults from the previous one while keeping the foundation of the original and building on it. The first game was way too difficult. The second game still had a few really difficult parts in it, but it was toned down enough that you could finish the game without too much major frustration. Now the third game has fixed the horrible camera and unsteady frame rate from the second one. All in all, Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is an excellent game that fixes nearly all of the problems from the previous games and does it with style.