The Bear and the Bird

Rare’s 3D platformer Banjo-Kazooie hit the Nintendo 64 console in 1998, coupling a friendly bear with a chirpy little bird in his backpack. For its time Banjo-Kazooie had an incredible amount of content, it allowed players to truly feel connected with the world and the story being told. There will be fond memories of tackling colourful and creative worlds, engaging with loveable characters and piecing together collected jigsaw pieces (known as Jiggies) to eventually tackle Gruntilda, the evil witch. Following its success Rare released the sequel, Banjo-Tooie (2000), gamers will remember Gruntilda being defeated at the end of this title and a reference is made to a third game in the series.

After a ‘short’ 8 year wait we finally have the next instalment for our duo, which obviously has a lot to live up to. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is an Xbox 360 exclusive, correctly set 10 years after the original. Both our heroes have had a very lazy break and turned into overweight, couch potatoes. They are approached by the self acclaimed Lord of Video Games (LOG), he isn’t happy with computer games of the past so he creates a brand new world that our duo can reform in. The evil Gruntilda is back, only her head survived the last battle but LOG provides her with a new body to again become the evil in this adventure. So they can take up the proposed challenge, Banjo and Kazooie are gifted their previous shapely bodies again.

  
Banjo-Kart-fusion??

Right, time to get the important bit cleared up, things are not what you expect in this next gen version of Banjo-Kazooie. Its time to wave goodbye to old abilities such as the talon trot and the beak buster, our twosome now relies on vehicle use. Actually there are only a few basic actions you can perform while on foot; jumping, running, climbing, grabbing ledges, pushing objects and smacking people with a magic wrench (pretty basic stuff).

You are dropped into the main world (showdown town) with a strange looking tray on wheels and your wrench, your objective seems to be to get back to Spiral Mountain. This is the second main difference between Nuts and Bolts and the originals, there is a lot of confusion at the start, you cant seem to work out what you need to do and what you can do. After 20 minutes of Banjo Kazooie on the N64 we realised how the game will play out and how many things will need collecting in each world, in this version you will barely understand the controls and still be confused with how the storyline works into the game.

  
Don’t give up hope yet….

Playing Nuts and Bolts for 30 minutes or having a blast on the demo will only show you about 5% of what the game actually offers, which is going to cause Rare a problem because progression is quite slow and the game play is basic and boring at first with no real promise of anything different. Once you start to put some time into this game, you begin to realise Rare have still got that creative imagination which sucked players into the Banjo-Kazooie franchise in the first place.

  
Gameplay

The main town, showdown town is the area you can freely roam around collecting notes, mumbo crates (that contain new vehicle parts) and unlocking levels (using, yes you guessed it, Jiggies) . It starts off as a small group of houses with a huge mountain in the middle and some water streams near the edges but eventually becomes a huge and busy town that will have you doing many other things like saving jingos, opening secret areas, playing in the arcade, purchasing items and many more. This is where the platforming remains, once the main areas are accessible (when your tray has the needed parts) you realise gaining access to the hundreds of collectables and secrets within this town will require climbing, jumping and pushing switches. Only one vehicle is allowed in showdown town, the ‘tray’ which at first is literally a tray on four wheels powered by a tiny engine. With progression in the levels it soon gains new parts and gadgets turning it into a boat, a jumping vehicle, a hill climber and even more. This is very beneficial when you are trying to see and do everything within showdown town because although there is on foot platforming, you usually require the vehicle to do the first part of puzzle for you.

The wrench is used to pick up objects, using its magic, you will use it to move jiggies into and out of your vehicles tray. You can even mess around with scenery objects and even pick up your vehicle if it is stuck. It will also knock down enemies and build/repair vehicles when you are on the move. Really it doesn’t have a massive impact even though it is doing a lot of important things for you.

Levels are unlocked depending on the amount of Jiggies you have banked. Once the amount is sufficient you will need to grab the ‘game globe’ that LOG dispenses for you and insert it into the required slot. The levels themselves are LOGS attempts at ‘mini’ game worlds, they have their own challenges in each, activated by approaching the people of interest (they have jiggies above their heads to indicate them). This is where the main emphasis on the vehicles is, all challenges will be vehicle based whether it’s a race, taxi mission or other timed tasks. Depending on your success you will earn notes, jiggies or special trophies (these trophies can be later exchanged for extra Jiggies). There are basic vehicle blueprints you can select to use for a task, the tasks vary in skill but often the main way to success is to build your own creation. This is where the frustration will come in because it will involve some trial and error tactics to succeed, especially with the later levels. You can spend 30 minutes of building and testing on just one task. There is 131 Jiggies in the game and there are more tasks than that to make room for the other collectables, so if you have lack of patience you will be in a bit of a temper if things aren’t going your way.

Vehicle play works quite well, using a very interesting and innovative building tool. Vehicles can be built from a clean slate using Lego like mechanics at Mumbos Workshop. Simple shaped objects can be combined to create your vehicles body and then you can add wheels, engines, fuel tanks and hundreds of accessories (even weapons). The possibilities are endless, if you have the creative thinking and patience, you will spend a lot of time in this workshop. Building is restricted to the parts you have collected and unlocked, you can collect parts from mumbo crates or buy them from the store using notes, the store also sells fully built vehicle blueprints. Planes, boats, hovercrafts, bikes and many more are possible, all with a very different feel. Handling depends heavily on the type of vehicle and its build, a good example is the tray. At first it feels loose and slides around when performing manoeuvres , later when you unlock tire upgrades, it will go wherever you want, it’s a huge impact from just a small part so take note people who only played for 30 minutes, I was a bit put off at first also. The physics is very clever, I have had a lot of fun attaching multiple engines onto lightweight bodies but if you get your build wrong such as adding too much weight to one side with light grip wheels then your creation will be useless. You really have to think carefully about placement of your parts. This makes the game not so friendly to younger children as the previous titles.  

In true Banjo and Kazooie fashion you are urged to keep playing as all these different wacky collectables and objectives inter link to gift you with new abilities this time in vehicle form. Rare have put a nice touch into the soon to be released arcade version of the original, you can collect items in the original that will cross over to your Nuts and Bolts save and unlock special items in the game. Progression is the key and if your patient at first and grow to like the new concept you will be playing for hours. To do everything in this game I would say there is at least 40 hours gameplay on offer.

  
Multiplayer

Your vehicle blueprints can be shared with friends across Xbox LIVE if they are in need of help or sort on supplies.

There is a competitive multiplayer mode in this game online and split screen, it is sort of Diddy Kong Racing with your own creations. Sounds fun, but there is a big drawback, the circuits, they are extremely boring and in total there is only about 10. Also so far there is no one online what so ever so that sort of renders the multiplayer useless. It feels like it has been bolted on afterwards but it actually didn’t even need to be there, most people didn’t even expect it to be there.

  
Presentation & Sound

The old Banjo-Kazooie titles were a delight to look at and so is this 360 version, lighting and water have a very realistic look. The wacky designed worlds although purposely very unrealistic, are full of colour, well designed objects and characters. A particularly interesting world is ‘logbox 720’ which is a very detailed inside of a games console with classic Rare games spinning around in the disc drives. Although there are not as many worlds as the previous Banjo-Kazooie titles, they still have very different settings and variations to them. The showdown town changes from a busy, sunny daytime town into an illuminated night time entertainer.

There are some weak points though, some problems with textures now and then and very occasional pop up but they don’t have an interfering impact. Also when the game is loading a complex menu of blueprints, it will react slowly to commands, this is only in menus though, not game play. Hopefully the NXE allowing an install may rectify some of these issues.

The sound is as you would expect for the title, nothing too immersive but you can hear the busy environments and nice water splashes really well, like the previous games did. Engine and tire noises are as good as they need to be for this type of game. Like the old releases, there is no voice over for the characters. It is all scrolling (witty) text, which is still ok but I think its one thing that could have been brought up to date.

  
Final Thoughts

Banjo and Kazooie’s old adventures were for everyone but that is not the case anymore. Rare wanted to bring the title up to date, whether this new approach has worked or not, will differ depending on people’s experiences with this new concept. I personally think it’s a step in the right direction.

Players must remember that this new version will take time and patience to get into, once you get there though you discover a very grown up version of the game which offers an amazing amount of content and the usual Banjo and Kazooie array of rewards. Getting back to seeing Spiral Mountain in next gen form was enough to keep me going!