HOME | DD

SteffLoui [2012-02-12 00:18:23 +0000 UTC]

Banjo Tooie, once you get the hang of it...BAM....one of the most extraudinary platformers ever

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

folksongs [2010-10-17 20:00:50 +0000 UTC]

I like Banjo-Kazooie more than Tooie, I haven't played N&B but I've heard it was good, just different.

Anyways, I love this picture here! I love how in-character you drew them, haha.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Mat-Mc [2010-10-12 22:09:10 +0000 UTC]

Banjo Kazooie nuts and bolts was a very good game but it was nothing at all like the first two. If you do eventualy try the game keep an open mind and dont think of it as a BK game, also I love your picture it is kind of charming.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

TheCrescentFox [2010-10-12 12:14:34 +0000 UTC]

I always heard that Banjo-Tooie was better than the original, but I played through it on XBL and beat it, but I have to strongly disagree. Just didn't seem as fun to me compared to the first.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

WaspCarcass [2010-10-12 08:14:36 +0000 UTC]

Woops, sorry about that wall of text, I let myself go a bit!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

WaspCarcass [2010-10-12 08:14:07 +0000 UTC]

YESS, my favourite duo of all time! I remember getting this game for my 8th birthday, I also met Banjo on DKR the first time, though I didn't quite like him as his handling was really difficult. After I got BK it all changed, the style, the excellent sense of humour, the secrets (STOP 'N' SWOP) and the sequel, it had it all. It is my very favourite game of all time and I'm not exaggerating if I say that I've played through it at least 15 times.

I do have BK, BT, BK Grunty's Revenge (it sucks) and BK Nuts and Bolts, though I would not recommend the latter two games. Nuts and Bolts did have a lot of potential, but all the good ol' creative platforming has been replaced with cars, which is a huge deal breaker right there because excellent platforming was the core of the BK gameplay in the first place. All of Kazooie's abilities have been replaced with a wrench, there is no talon trotting, no flying (you get planes for that), no launching yourself through the air like a missile, no using the bird as a gun, no barfing/crapping eggs at enemies, no slamming the bird at the ground as a makeshift weapon, no turning into a fire breathing dragon, no using Kazooie as a drill, no invulnerability shields, no climbing up vertical walls, no nothing. All the navigating has been replaced with cars, boats and planes/helicopters.
Building vehicles can be fun, but only if you know what you are doing. Balancing out the weight and efficiency of the vehicles you build can be frustrating, but the possibilities are practically endless. Too bad the missions lack variety, it's racing, dogfights and transport objects from point A to B. It's basically a compilation of minigames that require vehicles. A big problem for me is that building a vehicle can take really long (20-30 minutes, depending what you need it for) and the missions you use them for are often really short, some only lasting a measly few seconds, which feels like a huge waste of time.

There is a main hub world sort of thing known as Showdown Town, where you can only use ONE vehicle, a lot of notes that you collect as a form of currency are stuck on the rooftops, and since friction doesn't seem to exist in this game Banjo slides down every surface (even a pile of rough dirt containing BRICKS) if it's even remotely angled, making the tiny bit of platforming left extremely tedious. You get upgrades on that ONE vehicle later on, allowing you to bounce or move on water, but as most platformer fans I'm itching to explore and tend to break the rules a bit, turning the jump attacks into improvised long jumps to cross gaps, and considering that you can still climb up trees and pipes, the climbing ability is rarely ever used. You can also balance on ropes and such connecting houses, but just like the climbing it's so rare to find objects to balance on that it's barely used at all.

That, and completing certain missions (such as Jinjo races) earns you notes anyway in much bigger quantities, making the 'platforming' completely unnecessary. You don't ever really feel the obligation to explore, which is a huge disappointment because the worlds are still kinda big and have a lot of potential, although it would be difficult to explore things close up when you're in a car in the first place.

Then there's this odd, sinister feeling of corruption lurking beneath the friendly appearance of the game, as many characters in Showdown Town often hint that LOG (Lord of Games, the creator of the town) is not as friendly (not that he is) as he may appear, and the town, along with it's inhabitants are being under strict surveillance about what they can say and such. It's not necessarily a BAD thing, mind, at least there's some depth in the atmosphere beyond the awful jokes and terrible attempts at repeatedly breaking the fourth wall. They REALLY went out of the way trying to joke about games that Rare made earlier, such as Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Such 'fourth wall' jokes mainly consist of calling the game designers lazy in numerous situations, mocking the choice of removing all of Kazooie's abilities (which really makes you wonder why they did it in the first place), implying that the BK franchise is shite because it doesn't have as many games as 'a certain Italian plumber' and so forth. They overdo of the way of making characters look stupid and cheap, and have painfully badly hidden sexual innuendos (some of them so forced that it can barely count as one), such as 'Mumbo's Nuts', referring to the coconut farm on the first stage.

Many of the stages don't consist of nature and mountains, but have a Yoshi's Story style type of environments, where the ground is made from patches of fabric and trees are made from junk. Most creatures roaming these stages are wind-up toys and are harmless, but fun to run over, kick around or just look at. The enemies consist of 'Gruntbots', metal scrap meatballs that roll into you and might damage your vehicle a little, posing as some form of minor threat. What's so upsetting about Gruntilda is that she is portrayed as a comic foil bad guy, and not as the vile and cunning evil hag she was in the two first games. The evil witch who would kidnap an innocent child out of jealousy and vanity, kill Bottles in cold blood, turn the Jinjo King into a zombie, crush her two sisters to death in her quiz game for fun and finally attack Banjo and Kazooie with a tank equipped with double mortar cannons, laser beams, toxic gas and a FRICKIN' DRILL is now resorting to petty theft like stealing coconuts and making horrible puns.

I have yet to play through the whole game as you can only have ONE save file, and since my brother is an impatient fuck he completed half of the game without me knowing about it so I'll just wait til' he's done and play through it myself someday. This 'only one save file' issue is really irritating, as family games are usually played by more than one player (families generally consist of more than a single person), I really don't see why they couldn't have 3 save files like almost every game has had the last 20 years! That, and since I live in Sweden, they translated the game for some reason, and there's no option to change the language back to English, meaning that I have to stick with this awkward crap (Swedish has to be the lamest sounding language ever, there is no way of taking it seriously). The dialogues are still spoken with gibberish, though.

Now, the game isn't TERRIBLE, the music is really nice, but it has been toned down somewhat. It's not BOOMING at you with such intensity as in the earlier games, instead it's placed more subtly in the background. I think both options are nice, however. The soundtracks consist of remixes from BK and BT, and it works surprisingly well. They don't have any original themes of their own, which may sound like a step back but it's the main source of the BK spirit in the game (what little is left of it). Grant Kirkhope has excelled himself yet once again! Sadly, he left the company in 2008, taking the last bit of awesome that was left with him.

The game is not as bad as I make it sound, my major problem (and I think almost all haters will agree) is that it bears the name 'Banjo Kazooie'. It has the characters, but apart from the refreshing tunes there is nothing left that could please most fans. If it had different characters and a different title I'm sure it would have been a much bigger success, Banjo may have originated from a racing game, but what made his series unique is the quirky exploration, not the vehicles.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

Ao-Kuro-Yoshi [2010-10-12 06:40:15 +0000 UTC]

Ah, there are some familiar faces! These guys rock!
I heard nothing but bad news from the one on the 360. Don't risk it!

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

YoshiNoJas [2010-10-12 05:42:58 +0000 UTC]

Banjo and Kazooie is soo cool XD
nice pic

👍: 0 ⏩: 1