Topic: Banjo-Kazooie is back & now on XBox 360

[couchmonkey]

Spak-Spang, I don't know where you get the idea that Nintendo "helped" Rare with its games.  The company was making good games long before Nintendo got involved, and I've never heard anything about Nintendo getting involved with Rare's games other than to slip them the Donkey Kong and StarFox liscences.

I personally think that Rare is really good at pushing gameplay limits, but maybe it's just not in a way you like.  A lot of their games, like Conker and Battletoads, throw in tons of different types of gameplay which makes them a lot of fun to me.

[Bill Aurion]

Spak-Spang, I don't know where you get the idea that Nintendo "helped" Rare with its games. The company was making good games long before Nintendo got involved, and I've never heard anything about Nintendo getting involved with Rare's games other than to slip them the Donkey Kong and StarFox liscences.

Eh?  Nintendo ALWAYS helps out devs that they are publishing games for...You think Retro Studios magically turned from crap to awesome just because they ate some magic beans?

Yes, Rare used to be really good at pushing gameplay limits...But people fail to understand that the people that used to work there DON'T anymore...Grabbed by the Ghoulies is not "pushing gameplay to its limits"...

[Spak-Spang]

Wow.  I didn't think I would get any supporters on the Rare not as Hot as they are believed.  However, Bill partially...maybe agrees.

I am not saying that Rare is bad.  I am saying they are overhyped.  Most people rate the best development companies are Nintendo then Rare...or so it seems on these boards.

Rare to me is about as good as an average Konami and Capcom game.  Good...yes, potentially great sometimes...but always great, Never.

[Arbok]

Quote
Originally posted by: Spak-Spang
I am not saying that Rare is bad.  I am saying they are overhyped.  Most people rate the best development companies are Nintendo then Rare...or so it seems on these boards.

I assume you mean during the N64 days around when Perfect Dark was released, I know I haven't heard anyone talk that highly of them in a long time. Even back when they were still a second party. They did a lot of good games during the SNES and N64 days, although their quality even back at the end of the N64's life cycle was starting its slow drop.

Then SFA came along, which pretty much showed people that Rare could still make a great looking and sounding game (love that soundtrack) but they just didn't have it anymore in regards to the gameplay.

[Dasmos]

I haven't played grabbed by the ghoulies what is it? What's the story? What do you do in it? How do you play it? What makes it bad?

[KDR_11k]

Google could have helped you with that.

[Dasmos]

It did.........don't worry i know all about Rare's Xbox masterpiece...

[couchmonkey]

Yes, Retro did have help from Nintendo...in fact it was highly, highly publicized.  Everyone knows that Nintendo went in and fired a huge chunk of the company and canned everything but Metroid Prime and then kept a constant watch over it, because practically every Nintendo publication around printed that story.  On the other hand, I've never heard anything of the sort about Nintendo's relationship with Rare other than Nintendo asked Rare to use a couple of liscences here and there.

But going back to my initial position, it's taste.  Rare's games suit my tastes, and yes, I'm a part of the rabid Rare fanbase that even likes the games that scored low in reviews.  Objectively speaking, I don't know if Rare is really overrated, or if there just happen to be a lot of Nintendo fans like myself who still love Rare a lot - they're overrated by a certain group of people.  I bet if you go and hang out in Sony or even some Xbox forums, you'd get a much more neutral vibe about Rare.

[WesDawg]

Quote
Great Rare games: Great Rare games:
Killer Instinct
Donkey Kong Country 1 + 2
Goldeneye 007
Perfect Dark
Diddy Kong Racing

Good Rare games:
Banjo Kazooie
Star Fox Adventures
SabreWulf

Donkey Kong 64 was too repetitive and boring, especially.

The fact that you left out Jet Force Gemini voids your opinion entirely.

Anyways, I really liked Banjo 1. Didn't get very far into 2. I really don't understand all the hate for collecting in Platformers. It never bothered me. In fact, I kinda looked forward to trying to find those last three pieces of ... whatever I was trying to find pieces of. It was challenging. Apparently people just don't like platformers. I don't like football games, or FPSs for that matter. That don't make Perfect Dark a bad game though.

PoP:SoT, now there was a crappy platformer IMO. Straight paths through every level. A single way over obstacles. Repetitive same moves in every room.  The more I think about it, the more I think people must be crazy to like what they like and hate what they hate.

[kennyb27]

I'll throw in my list (of the ones I've played):

Great games:
-Banjo-Kazooie (N64)
-Banjo-Tooie (N64)
-Diddy Kong Racing (N64)
-Goldeneye (N64)
-Perfect Dark (N64)
-Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge (GBA)

Good games:
-Jet Force Gemini (N64)
-Star Fox Adventures (GCN)

Bad games:
-Donkey Kong 64 (N64)

As you can see, of the games I've played, I liked most of the Rare games that I've played.  

EDIT:  The more I thought about it, the more I thought BK:GR should be moved to the "Great games" category, I really liked that game.  It was just fun.

[MattVDB]

Am I the only one who loved Jet Force Gemini?  I think that game absolutely rocked.  Yes, it did have a lame collect-o-thon, but I viewed it as classic gaming.  You know, the whole high score breaking type.  I thouroughly enjoyed the game, and loved that almost all of it could be played co-op.  How many adventures are co-op now a days?  It had an awesome play dynamic that was just fun.  The art style was pleasant, and a twist for the time.  Whatever system they made a sequel to it on, I would buy in a heart beat.

[kennyb27]

I didn't love it, but it was a good game.  The co-op was definitely cool, and I enjoyed parts of it, but I remember just losing interest in playing it after a while.

[Spak-Spang]

I couldn't stand the game, because it just felt cheap.  Enemies not in your view taking pot shots at you...and not because you forgot they were behind you, but because they were hiding in trees.  There was no way unless you knew they were there to kill them without taking at least one hit.  

Then in areas that didn't have this problem it just felt like repeative shooting and gunning.  

[couchmonkey]

I loved JFG.  I was a little frustrated that I had to save/find every last Tribal to finish the game, but everything else about it was perfect to me.  I don't recall any problems with hidden enemies, but then I'm the kind of player who will stop and observe every nook and cranny of an area for enemies before I rush in.

[kennyb27]

Quote
I couldn't stand the game, because it just felt cheap. Enemies not in your view taking pot shots at you...and not because you forgot they were behind you, but because they were hiding in trees.

Ha. It's funny you mention that, I remember that too.

[MattVDB]

Yeah, they did have those rooms where you would walk in, die, and go "wtf?".  That's what I liked about it.  How many games keep you on edge like that?  The bosses were swank.  The first time they get revealed is incredible.  The graphics were excellent for the time, and the cutscenes are examples of "done right" cut scenes (those, and StarFox 64s).  The challenge the game had was, in my opinion, only hindered by the neccesity of collecting every tribal.  Most areas weren't bad, or too long, in the tribal collecting, and really pushed the exploring part of the game.  There is no denying that; the game was huge.  In my opinion Metroid Prime is similar to JFG, except every part was done right.  Don't tell me the Elite Phazon Trooper didn't remind you, at least slightly, of JFG bosses.....*please?*

[Aussie Ben PGC]

I really liked Jet Force, I was just mind-numbingly awful at it on my own.  So the good thing was being able to play co-op with my friend.  I remember us fighting for hours and hours against those two hopping Mantis bosses that repeatedly destroyed us over and over and over.  It was such a genuine victory for us when we finally managed to beat them.  And let's not forget the old Diamond Geezer.

"HELLO TOSH WHAT CAN I DO YOU FOR?  HA HA."

And then there were those level names.    We all know about them, right?

[Deguello]

AWRIGHT TOSH!

[Aussie Ben PGC]

Damn, I KNEW I had it wrong.

[Spak-Spang]

MattVDB:  That isn't good game design, that's the defination of BAD game design.  You should always be able to react and escape death with or without knowing the room and level you just walked into.  

The only game series that is forgivable in is Resident Evil, and even then that is only arguably fogivable because of the scare element of horror games.  

It really all comes to the feel of the game.  A should never feel like it is stacked against.  It can feel intense by making the odds seem impossible, but a great player should always be able to beat any part of the game by skill, and not memory of where traps and enemies are.

[MattVDB]

Play Jungle Beat and say that again.  That game was all about memorization, and it was hailed as a return to classic gaming (along with touch and go) in the sense that it put you in one area, and told you to do your best.  That's how I view JFG.  Each "section" was it's own level that needed to be conquered.  I can only guess that the sections were too big for most peoples tastes to not enjoy.  Besides, honestly, I can only think of one level (the first one?) that had enemies shooting at you "before you saw them."  Going back and playing again, it was, most often, only because you failed to look.  I don't see that as poor design, I see that as poor skill at that point.  Later in the game, you would never let them do that to you.  How often did people die without knowing the enemy was?  I can't recall ever having that happen...

Thinking back, I've probably replayed that game more then any other game in the past 6 years, start to finish that is.  You do have to give it credit, for what it did wrong, it did a lot of things right.  I don't agree with the tribal hunt, but I don't think it as bad as the note collection from the Banjo series, although it is worse then the Prime titles.  Eh.

[Spak-Spang]

Matt:  I played Jungle Beat.  Yeah memorizing the levels will always allow you to play better...BUT you can beat the level and game without memorizing the game.  There is a difference.

Yoshi's Touch and Go heralds back to some even more traditional game with random levels...and that actually hurts the game.  It is still pretty good, but it still hurts it.

Once again though you can still beat the level without getting hurt even playing that level for the first.  In fact, since it is a one hit kill game, you completely have to beat the level on one life.

[KDR_11k]

I agree, cheap deaths suck. It's completely unacceptable to have a sequece where you have to know ahead of time what will happen to survive. Sure, the first time it will often surprise you and you might perform sub par because of that but you should NEVER die just because you haven't wasted five lives on figuring out which tiles trigger that trap. That's why many people HATE Nethack. Cheap deaths AND permadeath (die once, your character is gone forever) are a nasty combinations. Nethack veterans will tell you there are ways to avoid everything but a lot has to be learned by trial and error (e.g. food rots  in a few steps time, then it poisons you and poisoning is fatal).

[MattVDB]

Cheap deaths suck, there is no way around that.  I guess what I was wondering was when do cheap (occasional and avoidable) hits translate into poor game design?  I missed that.  Cheap hits/deaths are a big reason why I don't play fighters outside of SSB.  "I pulled off the *insert super combo here*(when all they did was randomly hit buttons)"  

[KDR_11k]

In fighting games there are no cheap hits, you can deflect or counter any attack. Well, in GOOD fighting games there are no cheap hits.