I'm making this thread, partially to vent my frustrations at Rareware, and partially to mess with missingno because I know he bought a 360 so he could play this game.
To preface, let me say that I'm a HUGE Banjo Kazooie fan, and a big fan of Rare (or, Rare's good platformers, of which they have yet to make one in recent years.) In my opinion, the Banjo Kazooie series far outweighs the Mario series in terms of gameplay, storyline, and plain old fun. Rare games to me have that extra touch of polish and just enough edginess to be entertaining but at the same time very accessible (except for Conker which is awesome in its own right.) I also greatly enjoyed how Banjo Kazooie broke the fourth wall constantly, and the way Banjo Kazooie muses with gameplay that would become Banjo Tooie. It's a game series that accepts what it is and has fun with it, and you as a player have fun too. Crazy amounts of fun, even retarded levels of fun. Banjo Kazooie (and Tooie) in my opinion represent everything that makes a perfect platformer.
The story this time around is that the Lord of Games (LOD, a floating cloak wearing entity with a face decidedly ripped off of Mike the TV from Reboot) has created all games since the beginning of time and has decided that Banjo and Grunty should have a final showdown over who owns Spiral Mountain. Grunty has been reduced to a robotic... witch... thing. And everyone else has become and ugly angular Madagascar version of themselves. The setup is pretty crappy and a lame excuse for the gameplay, but the dialogue and scenes in-game are just as funny and sharp as before. There are also some pretty cool looking characters in this style, but unfortunately Banjo just looks plain-old hideous. Kazooie looks good, Mumbo looks better, Wumba is hotter than before and Grunty looks great... But... Banjo... sigh.
Oh yeah, and Bottles is back from the dead since Tooie. He was tired of being a ghost so he just... "got over it".
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/ima ... 2_640w.jpg[/img]
Now, let's get on to the problems. The problem with Rareware of late, is that they've been bought out by Xbox and, I'm not sure how or why, but they feel the need to overcook their graphics by a lot. Early Rare games used simplistic character models, but supplanted that with simple shapes, beautiful colors, landscapes and a cartoony atmosphere. By overcompensating in certain areas Rare was able to create incredibly rich and detailed worlds with not a lot of power. Now that they have power though, they are overusing it instead of scaling back. You can see this in Grabbed By the Ghoulies. The game comes out looking like generic cheap 3d motion picture animation instead of slightly stylized and basic like Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie or Conker. For some reason Rare has a tendency to make realistic and competent action games (Perfect Dark and 007) or totally hideous "straight to video" Pixar wannabe cartoons. This syndrome got worse by the time they released Kameo: Elements of Power, which has enough bloom to burn a hole through Ray Charles' blues loving cornea.
http://cdn1.gamepro.com/article_img/gamepro/53192-1.jpg[/img]
All that brightness might look good, but it ultimately distracts from the game. Take for example, TF2, which uses bright, but slightly subdued levels that attract and direct players through the maps. This is important, especially for Rare's forte, action platformers. If everything is shiny, then you have to make the shiny collectibles and important game objects even shinier. And when everything is shiny you have a gaudy mess.
http://www.cbwgaming.com/games/tf2/2fort.jpg[/img]
Next point, and this is admittedly small compared to the last one: I CAN'T READ A GODDAMN THING THE CHARACTERS ARE SAYING!! Now, a lot of people nowadays have big fancy plasma screen televisions, but not everyone, and it's getting really annoying how half of all 360 games have tiny ass fonts that are impossible to read. Now, I've played my 360 on my normal old television, and on either of my friend's big ass plasma screen, and I can tell you Bioware, Harmonix, Rockstar, Capcom and Valve can fucking include scaling fonts in their fucking games. Yet Rare apparently cannot. If you don't have a plasma widescreen you shouldn't buy this game, period. You won't be able to read the tiny font unless you squint and get your eyes dangerously close to the overbloomed graphics.
http://xbox360media.gamespy.com/xbox360 ... 049803.jpg[/img]
Moving on... And this is probably the biggest problem against BK:NB, this is not a Banjo Kazooie game. Banjo's in the game, Kazooie's in the game, Grunty's there, Klungo, Jinjo's, Mumbo, Humba Wumba, etc... But it's not a Banjo Kazooie game. What it is, is Kingdom Heart's Gummi-ship minigame with Banjo Kazooie wallpaper and a crappy physics engine. Banjo and Kazooie have... a modicum of their old "moves", but you won't be required to use them really. Oh, and when I say it's the "Kingdom Heart's Gummi-ship minigame" I'm not joking around. The game literally has the same system, the exact same goddamn parts and the same annoyance factor. You build cars, tanks, carts and all kinds of contraptions and then use them to defeat various minigame objectives.
Now, on paper this sounds fun, and I was actually looking forward too it. But what does the game in is the crappy quasi-cartoony physics and a lack of solid vehicle control. Your contraptions will get stuck in things, fall over and handle like shit which is important because you're going to have to use these vehicles for everything from travelling the world to collecting puzzle pieces. And it sucks because it wasn't ten minutes into the game that I ditched the fucking car and started exploring the game the old fashioned way, on foot. Which was fun until I realized unlike the older games, the levels in this world are designed vertically instead of horizontally. Traditionally platform games have horizontal conscious levels since you are expected to jump. You jump over chasms and climb massive structures. BK:NE is instead designed to be travelled with a car that can go up ramps and goes around turns.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/ ... 360_23.jpg[/img]
I know this all sounds like I'm one of those angry fans, who's disappointed that the new game isn't exactly like the old game, but hear me out. I wanted to like this game, and I was looking forward to it, but it's really the gameplay that kills the experience. It's unwieldy controls, overdrawn graphics and uncooperative nature really ruins the experience. And really, this game didn't have to star Banjo Kazooie. In fact, you get the feeling like Banjo and Kazooie were thrown into the game as an afterthought. In the first level I encountered was a giant Banjo Kazooie nostalgia museum, engineered to pull on the ol' nostalgia strings. The game features Banjo and Kazooie because it's a guaranteed sale (something Rare needs after Viva Pinata failed in a similar way that Spore failed)... It's hard to say that without sounding like an angry fan, but... Well, that's just the way it's come out. Much like Kameo and Viva Pinata and many other recent Rare games, it's simply over ambitious and unplayable.
So, it's kind of obvious I'm making a big deal out of this, turning a simple opinion into a complex essay, but I think it's an important lesson for a lot of game designers out there. It's easy to throw everything you think up at a game because you have the power, but you've got to take the time and sort through what works and what doesn't. Just like a book where every word has to support the story, every aspect of the game you create has to support the overall vibe of the game. Nothing more, nothing less.
To preface, let me say that I'm a HUGE Banjo Kazooie fan, and a big fan of Rare (or, Rare's good platformers, of which they have yet to make one in recent years.) In my opinion, the Banjo Kazooie series far outweighs the Mario series in terms of gameplay, storyline, and plain old fun. Rare games to me have that extra touch of polish and just enough edginess to be entertaining but at the same time very accessible (except for Conker which is awesome in its own right.) I also greatly enjoyed how Banjo Kazooie broke the fourth wall constantly, and the way Banjo Kazooie muses with gameplay that would become Banjo Tooie. It's a game series that accepts what it is and has fun with it, and you as a player have fun too. Crazy amounts of fun, even retarded levels of fun. Banjo Kazooie (and Tooie) in my opinion represent everything that makes a perfect platformer.
The story this time around is that the Lord of Games (LOD, a floating cloak wearing entity with a face decidedly ripped off of Mike the TV from Reboot) has created all games since the beginning of time and has decided that Banjo and Grunty should have a final showdown over who owns Spiral Mountain. Grunty has been reduced to a robotic... witch... thing. And everyone else has become and ugly angular Madagascar version of themselves. The setup is pretty crappy and a lame excuse for the gameplay, but the dialogue and scenes in-game are just as funny and sharp as before. There are also some pretty cool looking characters in this style, but unfortunately Banjo just looks plain-old hideous. Kazooie looks good, Mumbo looks better, Wumba is hotter than before and Grunty looks great... But... Banjo... sigh.
Oh yeah, and Bottles is back from the dead since Tooie. He was tired of being a ghost so he just... "got over it".
http://xbox360media.ign.com/xbox360/ima ... 2_640w.jpg[/img]
Now, let's get on to the problems. The problem with Rareware of late, is that they've been bought out by Xbox and, I'm not sure how or why, but they feel the need to overcook their graphics by a lot. Early Rare games used simplistic character models, but supplanted that with simple shapes, beautiful colors, landscapes and a cartoony atmosphere. By overcompensating in certain areas Rare was able to create incredibly rich and detailed worlds with not a lot of power. Now that they have power though, they are overusing it instead of scaling back. You can see this in Grabbed By the Ghoulies. The game comes out looking like generic cheap 3d motion picture animation instead of slightly stylized and basic like Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie or Conker. For some reason Rare has a tendency to make realistic and competent action games (Perfect Dark and 007) or totally hideous "straight to video" Pixar wannabe cartoons. This syndrome got worse by the time they released Kameo: Elements of Power, which has enough bloom to burn a hole through Ray Charles' blues loving cornea.
http://cdn1.gamepro.com/article_img/gamepro/53192-1.jpg[/img]
All that brightness might look good, but it ultimately distracts from the game. Take for example, TF2, which uses bright, but slightly subdued levels that attract and direct players through the maps. This is important, especially for Rare's forte, action platformers. If everything is shiny, then you have to make the shiny collectibles and important game objects even shinier. And when everything is shiny you have a gaudy mess.
http://www.cbwgaming.com/games/tf2/2fort.jpg[/img]
Next point, and this is admittedly small compared to the last one: I CAN'T READ A GODDAMN THING THE CHARACTERS ARE SAYING!! Now, a lot of people nowadays have big fancy plasma screen televisions, but not everyone, and it's getting really annoying how half of all 360 games have tiny ass fonts that are impossible to read. Now, I've played my 360 on my normal old television, and on either of my friend's big ass plasma screen, and I can tell you Bioware, Harmonix, Rockstar, Capcom and Valve can fucking include scaling fonts in their fucking games. Yet Rare apparently cannot. If you don't have a plasma widescreen you shouldn't buy this game, period. You won't be able to read the tiny font unless you squint and get your eyes dangerously close to the overbloomed graphics.
http://xbox360media.gamespy.com/xbox360 ... 049803.jpg[/img]
Moving on... And this is probably the biggest problem against BK:NB, this is not a Banjo Kazooie game. Banjo's in the game, Kazooie's in the game, Grunty's there, Klungo, Jinjo's, Mumbo, Humba Wumba, etc... But it's not a Banjo Kazooie game. What it is, is Kingdom Heart's Gummi-ship minigame with Banjo Kazooie wallpaper and a crappy physics engine. Banjo and Kazooie have... a modicum of their old "moves", but you won't be required to use them really. Oh, and when I say it's the "Kingdom Heart's Gummi-ship minigame" I'm not joking around. The game literally has the same system, the exact same goddamn parts and the same annoyance factor. You build cars, tanks, carts and all kinds of contraptions and then use them to defeat various minigame objectives.
Now, on paper this sounds fun, and I was actually looking forward too it. But what does the game in is the crappy quasi-cartoony physics and a lack of solid vehicle control. Your contraptions will get stuck in things, fall over and handle like shit which is important because you're going to have to use these vehicles for everything from travelling the world to collecting puzzle pieces. And it sucks because it wasn't ten minutes into the game that I ditched the fucking car and started exploring the game the old fashioned way, on foot. Which was fun until I realized unlike the older games, the levels in this world are designed vertically instead of horizontally. Traditionally platform games have horizontal conscious levels since you are expected to jump. You jump over chasms and climb massive structures. BK:NE is instead designed to be travelled with a car that can go up ramps and goes around turns.
http://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/5462/2h/ ... 360_23.jpg[/img]
I know this all sounds like I'm one of those angry fans, who's disappointed that the new game isn't exactly like the old game, but hear me out. I wanted to like this game, and I was looking forward to it, but it's really the gameplay that kills the experience. It's unwieldy controls, overdrawn graphics and uncooperative nature really ruins the experience. And really, this game didn't have to star Banjo Kazooie. In fact, you get the feeling like Banjo and Kazooie were thrown into the game as an afterthought. In the first level I encountered was a giant Banjo Kazooie nostalgia museum, engineered to pull on the ol' nostalgia strings. The game features Banjo and Kazooie because it's a guaranteed sale (something Rare needs after Viva Pinata failed in a similar way that Spore failed)... It's hard to say that without sounding like an angry fan, but... Well, that's just the way it's come out. Much like Kameo and Viva Pinata and many other recent Rare games, it's simply over ambitious and unplayable.
So, it's kind of obvious I'm making a big deal out of this, turning a simple opinion into a complex essay, but I think it's an important lesson for a lot of game designers out there. It's easy to throw everything you think up at a game because you have the power, but you've got to take the time and sort through what works and what doesn't. Just like a book where every word has to support the story, every aspect of the game you create has to support the overall vibe of the game. Nothing more, nothing less.
and Klungo's arcade is tons of fun ^_^)