Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

[bkfount]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

I kind of hope Rare can get back to N64 form. They've been down for awhile and have scared MS off from paying big money for a developer again.

Viva Pinata was kind of cool, but nothing like another great Banjo Kazooie game. Can't wait to see it in action.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts isn't a racer.

"Reading some of the comments, it's nice to see that people think the game is quite pretty, but its definitely not a racer, which is what some people think it is," said George Kelion, community liason. "You're better off waiting until tomorrow, when we reveal what is for us the most spectacular feature of the game, which is the gameplay mechanic."

"There's some really good stuff coming through the pipeline... try not to jump to any conclusions, because the surprise is still yet to be revealed."

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Some info from the June GI

• Title name is Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
• Rare says they didn't want to make a hi-res version of the old Banjo platformer.
• You create vehicles with parts you find around the levels.
• GI says their first vehicle was a 4 wheeled kart with a spring attached to the bottom that allowed them to jump things. They later found a helicopter blade that allowed their kart to fly. Later they added balloons to the vehicle and put the blade on the back and created a hovercraft.
• Rare showed them a vehicle that was a monster truck that was able to detach its chasis to become a mini bike. When the bike ramped off a cliff it revealed collapsible glider wings and started flying.
• There will be 1,600 parts including weapons that you'll be able to attach to the vehicles.
• Fans of the original title shouldn't worry that Rare is forsaking the series' roots altogether. While vehicles are a large part of the game, Banjo's Hub world, Showdown Town, will still contain more traditional platforming trials, such as tightrope walking and jiggy piece collecting, to help break up the action.
• Showdown Town is 16 times larger than anything Rare has created before.
• Every level has a different intro. Nutty Acres begins with a credits spoof of 80's soap opera's like Dallas.
• Note collecting is back and will act as currency that'll allow you to buy vehicle blueprints.
• Each level (six in all) will have fifteen challenges with a variety of side missions as well.

Need more info, but I think it sounds really cool.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

More info

• Banjo (slated for November)
• Building vehicles is basically like playing with LEGO. You can always jump in and out of the vehicle editor and come right back to the game with the new design.
• Parts are easily placed and moved around. You don't have to worry about connecting the motor with the wheels for example. Just place everything so they stick together and don't get in the way.
• Vehicle designs can play a large role in missions. We saw one where you had to collect coconuts from a field and got a small truck that could suck them up. Unfortunately you couldn't fit all the coconuts in the truck and had to go back and deliver them in a large barrel. We were then shown how you could create a helicopter with a hook, that could pick up this large barrel, fly to the coconut field and fly low to scoop the coconuts in the barrel.
• Physics are awesome in this game and everywhere! With one design I placed the foot-in-a-box weapon behind a propella, and when I tried to use it, the foot/boot couldn't get past the propella... well, until I used it enough times to actually kick the propella off the vehicle!
• Pixel art... imagine the possibilities (Rare already had an example of this, paying homage to a certain plumber)
• Multiplayer is great fun with the ability to either chose from pre-fabricated or own vehicle designs. It still needs some polish here and there, but showed great promise.

Did I find it fun? Me and colleague haven't stopped thinking about it since we played it. It was extremely fun being able to create your own vehicles however you wanted it and play around with them. Just that in itself. It works so great! Add balloons and it will start to float. Add wings and you can actually steer in the air and fly around. Add inflatable balls and you won't sink when landing on water. Add a propella and you got propulsion in the water. Everything makes sense and work exactly how you think they will.

Now take that concept into multiplayer...

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Embargo is up.

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts Unveiled
Rare wows us with its new-look Banjo.

It's not the most common of things for a videogame franchise to be simultaneously reinvented and revived, so you can imagine the wondrous looks of the other visitors as we entered Rare's secluded studio in rural England. The Banjo franchise is beloved and the platformer genre is on Mario life support. Rare would need to do something special to win over a skeptic public. At the end of the day, it was easy to read the smiling faces of the other visitors: This is the game that we've been waiting for Rare to deliver since being bought by Microsoft.

As you may have already heard, this Banjo is not a traditional platformer like its predecessors. It's an evolution that injects user generated content into the classic platforming structure. Rather than completing a level and unlocking a power or skill to use in the next, this Banjo only gives you the parts and leaves the tool making up to you.

Debut trailer:

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[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts Officially Announced

Famed game developer Rare Ltd. is reviving one of its most beloved and successful franchises exclusively on Xbox 360 with the third installment of the “Banjo-Kazooie” series. “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” embraces new and old fans alike, as the famous bear and bird duo return in stunning high definition for a unique adventure of epic proportions. The Lord of the Games (aka LOG) is tired of the petty squabbling between Banjo and the evil witch Gruntilda (aka Grunty) over the years, and has arranged a showdown to decide the rightful owner of Spiral Mountain. Claiming to have created every video game ever made, LOG has built the game worlds in which the contest’s challenges take place. Banjo must complete LOG’s challenges to win, while Grunty tries to stop him using every method her devious mind can muster.

Throughout their adventure, players create their own abilities by building vehicles for Banjo to pilot over land, water and air. Vehicle parts, which range from simple devices such as engines and wheels to more unusual equipment such as springs and egg guns, are earned and collected throughout the game. Players use their imagination to combine parts in any order to create whatever vehicle they choose. LOG’s challenges have one goal, but players’ choice of vehicle and tactics will determine how they get there. By exploring worlds and solving puzzles, players both young and old will be rewarded with more advanced and diverse vehicle parts in their quest to defeat Grunty once and for all.

With the power of Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE, “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” brings an entirely new experience to the console and takes the franchise to a whole new level of enjoyment. High-definition graphics, user-created content and online gameplay are just three of the many advances people of all ages and skill levels will discover as they embark on their adventure.

• Features:

• An adventure that starts with your imagination. If you can imagine it, you can build it in the Mumbo’s Motors easy-to-use workshop. Then put your creation to the test as you take on Grunty in your quest for Spiral Mountain. Unlike other games, where the player progressively picks up new skills or abilities at points pre-determined by the game’s creator, “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” puts the power of improving Banjo’s abilities into the hands of the players as they build vehicles that allow Banjo to progress through the game. Vehicle parts include a wide variety of body panels, engines, wheels, wings, propellers, fuel and weapons, plus many more weird and wonderful gadgets such as floaters, Mumbo Bombos and the versatile sticky ball, from which players can design and create anything from a simple object-carrying truck to a space-age flying saucer. Once you’ve designed your creation, give it the finishing touch by painting it and choosing a suitable name before Banjo jumps in and pilots it into action.

• Customizable experience. With more than 100 contraption parts and unlimited combinations possible, no two players will have the same experience in “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.” By exploring the vast game worlds, discovering hidden secrets and solving puzzles to win rewards, players continually find more and more ways to customize and improve their contraptions, creating an unprecedented level of user-generated content for a 3-D platform adventure game.

• Fun right out of the box. Don’t worry if you aren’t the world’s greatest inventor or want to skip the workshop and get straight to the action, because “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts” comes with a fully loaded experience right out of the box. Pre-built vehicles are included so players can jump right in and get started, with many more contraptions available for purchase throughout the adventure using the in-game currency system of musical notes.

• Engaging storyline and entertaining characters. Two of Rare’s most beloved characters have returned from retirement, making their debut on Xbox 360. To win the deed to their homeland and prevent the evil witch Gruntilda from developing it into tower blocks and malls, Banjo and his best friend Kazooie battle over land, sea and air against their longtime rival. Familiar faces such as Mumbo Jumbo, Bottles, Captain Blubber and the Jinjos are also back to lend a hand, along with an equally colorful cast of new friends and foes. Look out for Trophy Thomas, Piddles, Lord of the Games and Grunty’s mechanically menacing army of Gruntbots.

• Enjoy alone or with friends. “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts” offers complete single-player and multiplayer experiences. You can play through the adventure alone in the single-player campaign, or play with friends in competitive or cooperative challenges on your own or in teams.

• Fun for everyone. Xbox 360 is the home to the best entertainment experiences for everyone. With “Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts,” Xbox 360 continues to build its impressive lineup of content that appeals to people of all ages and types.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

This game sounds so damn awesome. I'm glad Rare has tried something new.

More impressions:

Wired

Almost everything else about this game pales beside this innovation. Yes, Nuts & Bolts is a technical heavyweight: Rare stresses that the hub-city is the single largest game asset they've ever constructed by far. But the vehicle building eclipses anything else they could say. It's such an enormous, game-shifting change that the whole thing will clearly stand or fall on its strength or weakness.

And actually getting hands on with the thing, it doesn't just stand. It seems it flies.

1UP

So...where do I start? Nuts & Bolts -- bear with me (no pun intended) -- is a vehicle-based action-adventure platformer, if you can wrap your head around that. What I played recently is very much Banjo-Kazooie in its adventure elements and gorgeously vibrant world, but it has a heavy focus on vehicle construction and vehicular objectives. Banjo can still run around the mammoth levels on foot, but it's tough to accomplish much that way (especially at any reasonable speed). The real pleasure comes from finding a task to do or spotting an out-of-reach puzzle piece you'd like to acquire and then hopping into your workshop to build the appropriate vehicle to reach it.

"It came from a very simple idea of wanting to combine [construction parts] with different abilities," says Rare creative director Gregg Mayles. "The beauty of the concept was the player could combine those pieces in any order they wanted...and at the end of it, whatever they created...it would just work."

"The platform game genre -- it's quite traditional in its approach," continues Mayles. "So we thought, 'If we're going to reenter that genre, we need to do something that's going to make people look twice,' rather than just dismissing it as, 'It's Rare, there are going to be millions of things to collect, and everything will have googly eyes.'"

Some fans will surely yearn for a classic Banjo-Kazooie approach, and they'll at least get a taste of it in the hub world, Showdown Town. You'll get to explore it in between the primary stages in traditional Banjo fashion, hopping and bopping through enemies and climbing around town.

And whether the whole formula ultimately works or not, the game at least looks astounding. Absolutely popping with bright colors, interesting textures, and fanciful character and art design, it already stands as a jaw-dropping showpiece for HDTVs. Even Banjo's fuzzy fur impresses, and the environments never take the easy way out: Nutty Acres features a giant LCD screen as a sky-blue backdrop, with sheet-metal clouds hanging in front and what looks like a stitched grass quilt stretching over the landscape.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

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...

Interview with Gregg Mayles

What's been the reaction to the game outside of Rare so far?

Mayles: People have grasped it a lot quicker than we thought. We thought there might be some kind of, 'This isn't Banjo any more, what's going on?' But this hasn't proved to be the case. People can see what we've done and how we're trying to approach the platform genre in a slightly different way.

The traditional Banjo game was like, 'here's a character, we'll give you some moves but they're fixed abilities, and you use those fixed abilities to try and discover the solution to a designed problem.'

[In the new game] we're giving you a load of abilities, and you're able to combine those abilities however you feel will solve the problem. So rather than it being a case of trying to find the designer's way of doing it, maybe you can find your own way of doing it. I guess that, in a nutshell, is really what the game is, just having the freedom of trying to find your own way of doing things rather than what we tell you.

How do you think the Banjo hardcore will react to the changes?

Mayles: I think the generation of players that have played Banjo before are probably going to be shocked to start with. They're probably going to look at it and say, 'Hang on a sec, this isn't the Banjo I was expecting. What have you done? You've ruined it!'

But then hopefully, in a very short space of time, they'll be able to see what we've done and like it. You're never going to be able to change people's opinions of the old games and how they felt at the time. Obviously you're going to get a certain amount of rose-tinted glasses looking back on the old game being this wonderful masterpiece and nothing was ever wrong with it.

Are you doing the voices in-house again, or doing them all professionally, this time round?

Mayles: The mumbling?

Yeah.

Mayles: The mumbling's all done in-house again. Quite often by the same people. Banjo's voiced by Chris Sutherland, who was the lead programmer on the original Banjo.

And what do you think of Mario Galaxy?

Mayles: Very good.

That's it?

Mayles: I'm still playing it in my spare time. I thought it was an exceedingly polished, traditional platforming game, and frankly quite difficult to beat. If you were going to go along the similar lines, going for a very traditional, fixed-abilities, fixed-task kind of thing, I think it certainly would have been a massive challenge to try and go one up on that.

I think we're trying to approach it in a different direction. Obviously we will be compared to Galaxy, we can't get around that, but I'd like to think we offer something a bit different to Mario Galaxy and hopefully stand alongside it but for a different reason in terms of a different way of approaching things.

A lot of people who are going to be interested in Banjo 3 will be fans of the original. But a lot won't have heard of Banjo. Obviously you don't want this just to sell to the Banjo fans...?

Mayles: Oh no, certainly not. Our fan base will only shrink in time, it doesn't increase. Obviously we have to appeal to new fans. It's difficult. You look back for tradition's sake and put stuff in there that'll appeal to old fans, but I think it's more important to have an eye on the future. We could quite easily have churned out a very shiny, high-polygon traditional Banjo game, but that wouldn't have attracted too many new fans to be honest. I think a lot of the current Xbox players, or people that are considering buying an Xbox, would love to then say, "Oh, it's just more of the same. Galaxy is better, blah blah blah".

That was one of my questions - is there a million bit and pieces to collect?

Mayles: No, no.

But there's going to be a fair bit?

Mayles: In any game of this type there are things to collect, but we're trying to make sure that the stuff you do collect plays a fundamental role in the game. Obviously the biggest is the vehicle parts themselves - the more you collect, the better vehicles you can build. If you don't fancy collecting them, that's fine. You'll get given a certain amount anyway, but then the player can go out and find some more.

The notes have got a function where they act as a currency and you can buy additional parts or buy vehicles or buy all sorts of other bits and pieces, but again if you don't want to collect the notes then don't. It's there if you want to do it but it's not the be all and end all which maybe it was before.

Confident it'll be out this year then?

Mayles: Yes (a mobile phone suddenly buzzes aggressively on a table). What's that, the lie detector? (everyone laughs).

How complete is it?

Mayles: You can appreciate that the core mechanic of trying to build a vehicle and then put it into a world and then the software taking over and being able to control that, was a scary job. But that's been done. That was by far the hardest thing. Now it's a case of putting the content in - what can you actually do with these vehicles that you've created?

We always say the hardest work's been done, but there's still a lot of hard work to do to get it finished. But the biggest hill was passed a long time ago, thank God.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

OXM UK Interview

The game's visual style is quite unique, what inspired it?

The patchwork look of the game came from the idea that the hub level 'Showdown town' is the only real place and everywhere else is conjured by LOG's imagination. And he's a massive game player so he's created this perfect world for playing games in. It's very much like The Truman Show. It's not real but it's the best he can make look real.

What's the craziest vehicle anyone has come up with?

In the early days of testing, people were coming back with just four wheels, a seat and engine. But as the months went by, some of the creativity blew us away. People get as much enjoyment from that part of the game as any.

We've got the full complement of Star Wars vehicles, all working. We've even built the USS Enterprise and a space shuttle with the boosters detaching. It's amazing that you can make all these things and that's when we knew we'd nailed it.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

New Video

Furries? So hot right now. Also hot: videos! We've seen Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts excel in stills, but in video, it's quite moving. In this gameplay clip, Banjo and Kazooie collect coconuts, traverse bright green terrain, craft custom contraptions and pilot various vehicles to the constant din of sproing-y and boing-y sound effects. The eyes? Googly. The characters? Fuzzy. The game? So Rare.

[CM1847]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

It's going to be interesting to see how this turns out. A big departure, they could have copied the first two, updated the graphics and made everything bigger and most people would have been happy. As one of the many quotes you posted said, the entire game will pass or fail based on the vehicle creation portion of the game.

I like how much creativity this game will potentially let the user have. There are seemingly hundreds and hundreds of totally unique vehicle designs that may all work to get past a certain level.

[CM1847]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Reading stuff like this makes me really anticipate this game, very cool:

The next challenge was a long jump that reminded me of Crazy Taxi. Zip down a ramp and take a jump to see how far you can make it. First we saw it with some rockets in place of an engine and a spring on the bottom to vault off the end of the ramp. Not bad, but it only scored a D. Then we saw the same attempt with a car that had a detachable ball cage. At the apex of the jump the ball was let loose to bounce its way along the ground. Sounds like a pretty creative way to solve the task, but even that wasn't enough to get an A.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

1UP Interview

1UP: How do you feel about finally having some from-the-ground-up games now? Perfect Dark, Kameo: Elements of Power , for better or for worse, were carried over several generations, and now you're doing stuff that's brand new. I'm sure it's nice....

GM: For sure, yeah. What we've done with Banjo, the physics of the vehicles, would just not have been possible, even on Xbox 1. You wouldn't have been able to process the fact that the player would have been able to build anything, and then you've got to be able to place that in the world and it's got to work. That's a very complicated thing; I have no idea how it works. [Chuckles] You need to talk to the software engineers; it's all a mystery to me. So that wouldn't have been possible. It is nice to be able to look at what the hardware is capable of and rather than saying, "OK, we'll just double the amount of polygons," it's, "What can we actually do that wasn't actually possible before?"

On Piñata, the amount of content you could get into your garden was probably the thing where it's pushing the hardware the most. In previous generations it would have been difficult to get that amount of detail into such a small space. You'd have had to break it up into separate areas, or a big vast area where you just loaded in different bits at different times.

With Banjo, it's certainly what we're doing with the vehicles. The physics behind them, trying to get them to behave as you would expect them, to make something friendly no matter what you build -- even if it's the most unstable, unsightly vehicle -- once you've created it and placed it into the world, you would expect that to work. If it just fell over and wouldn't move or didn't do anything, you'd be fairly disappointed. It's quite a challenge to try and take whatever people have created -- because we don't know what people are going to make -- and somehow try and make it work for them. The 360's certainly working hard to achieve that.

Some comments from Gregg Mayles (Banjo creator) on another forum.

Up to you. You can use 'traditional methods' or use vehicles. 'Traditional' methods may work in some cases but not all. If you treat the vehicle pieces as abilities, then you get the idea. Combine the vehicle pieces to create the abilities you think you will need.

You can use them a lot, but in most cases you won't get very far. Think about it, the actual travelling around the levels in the old games wasn't the best bits. Trying to figure out what to do, discovering new worlds, interacting with daft characters, the humour and so on were Banjo's strengths. All we have done is make the travelling fun! I'm certain that there will be some players that have so much fun just messing around with the vehicles that they won't play the game 'properly' for long periods of time. In the same way that I thought that some players in Viva Pinata could get entertainment by simply watching their garden exist without actually doing anything to it.

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

Live Chat with Gregg Mayles (Long, but a good read.)

Donkey Kong Universe: Sure. The overall reaction from our site's Banjo diehards has been mixed, with many of them concerned that Nuts & Bolts is less a Banjo game and more a game with Banjo randomly stuck in it. How would you defend it to fans that were originally drawn in by B-K's move-based platforming?

Gregg Mayles: It's true that anyone wanting a carbon copy of the previous 2 games will be disappointed so I'm not even going to make out that it is. What I believe it to be is an evolution of the platform adventure genre. The genre is too stale, it needed shaking up, so we are trying something different, but within the framework of a 'traditional' Banjo game. It has a familiar structure, things to collect, characters to talk to and all the humour you would expect. I said on one forum that all we have done is to make the traveling fun. So that pretty much sums it up, we have taken the boring bit (traveling) and made it fun.

Rare Elite: Could you name some...besides blocks?

Gregg Mayles: You can buy upgrades to Banjo's basic abilities - speed, strength and stamina. You can bribe the police! You can buy pre-built vehicles. Plus some other stuff that we aren't talking about / yet to put in!

Spiral Mountain: Are you able to explain in greater detail how the vehicle building will be integrated into the game? i.e. do we have to go into Mumbo’s Motors to do it, or can you access the vehicle editor at any time?

Gregg Mayles: Most of the vehicle parts are found in Showdown Town. They are hidden all over and the player has to find them. Some can be bought, others won. You take them back to Mumbo's Motors where they are added to your parts store. You can go to the garage at any time apart from when in a challenge. You can also edit your vehicle at any time when not in the garage, e.g. if you want to take a part off or come across a new part lying around and want to bolt it on. It sounds complex but it isn't. You have a lot of freedom to do what you want, when you want. The idea is that you find out what the challenge involves, then either chose a vehicle that you think will suit the game, or make one. You build up your parts, which can be used to make anything you want. You can then save your creations and then use the same parts to make something else. So if you started with 10 parts, you could use these 10 parts in as many ways as you want. When you find more parts they are simply added to the total available, allowing bigger and better vehicles to be made. So you build up your abilities as you would in any platformer game, But people will find different parts at different times, so it's not linear as to who will have what parts and when.

NewRare: We assume that you decided of keeping the original voices in the game but what's the secret for making a bear scream? Do you recruit a drunk guy?

Gregg Mayles: No, we recruit the lead programmer of the previous Banjo games and tread on his toes. He has to remember to cry out like Banjo though! It took us a long time to decide to keep the mumbling. People automatically expect real speech today but I think that would have ruined the Banjo charm.

Mundo Rare: How big is (i.e. how many components could contain) the biggest vehicle the player can build? And, also, can we create a mix of vehicles all in one? Like a hover-copter-4x4-submarine or something!

Gregg Mayles: At the moment it is 19 'blocks' high, wide and deep. So that's pretty big. We've built some real monsters. I made a nuclear sub the other night but it was too heavy and underpowered, so it sank! You can make a mix, yes.

Mundo Rare: oh, so you have a limit of 'blocks', despite there are 1600 in the game...?

Gregg Mayles: We've had old fashioned galleons with jets. There are around 100 different types of blocks, with numerous examples of each. So around 1600 in total, but a 19x19x19 area is 6859 blocks! So don't worry about not being able to build something!

Donkey Kong Universe: What would you say the traditional platforming/vehicle usage ratio is in the overall scope of the game?

Gregg Mayles: I knew someone would ask that! Mmm...I would say around 80% vehicles, but just a rough guess. Banjo gets in and out of the vehicles all the time, but the traveling is done in the vehicles. A lot of the tasks require Banjo to get out and either do something to the vehicles, put something in the vehicles and so on. So you aren't in them all the time, but once you play the game and realize the freedom the vehicles have you will forget that they are vehicles and simply a different way of having abilities, albeit ones that you choose and combine. I know it is going to be tough for people to accept that vehicles, especially the old fans, but I believe they make the old games look limited and very outdated. People are always afraid of change. But change for the better is great, which is what I believe this game to be. It's going to take time for people to get it, I know!

Spiral Mountain: Can you elaborate on how many Jiggies / challenges there are in total, and how they correspond with the Challenge Spheres we've seen in Showdown Town (i.e. one sphere features one challenge, or are there many challenges within each sphere)?

Gregg Mayles: Yep, easy. There are 96 Jiggy Challenges, then there are another 96 Challenges that are 'different' versions of the Jiggy Challenges, where further Jiggies can be won. Around 130 jiggies in total I think. The Game Globes (as they are called) These are the game worlds, They have to be taken to set places in ST (Showdown Town) to activate them. Once a GG is activated, all the doors around ST that lead to that world are available. There are 6 doors into each world. Each door requires a varying amount of Jiggies to open it, so very much like the old game, but more in depth.

Spiral Mountain: Yeah, that's great. Is the number of worlds confirmed as 6, or do you have some lying in wait for us?

Gregg Mayles: So lets take Nutty Acres as an example. There are 6 doors into Nutty Acres, each door leads to a different 'act' in Nutty Acres. Each act features a varying amount of Jiggies to be won. Some acts only have 1 jiggy whereas others have several. If the act door is open you can enter it, the order you tackle them in is only controlled by which doors are open around town. Jiggies control pretty much all progress.

Mundo Rare: Pretty much like DKR, isn't it?

Gregg Mayles: Yes, it's more like DKR than the other Banjo games, but I'd say there is even more freedom. You visit Nutty Acres Act 1 and see stuff you will be doing in Act 3 and Act 4. It's very clever like that. We don't set up different stuff per Act, you see stuff in earlier acts and then get to do things with that stuff later. Hard to explain, but you'll like it!

NewRare: How long have you worked for this sequel? Had you envisaged to make this new game suitable for the old consoles like the original Xbox or actually like an addon developed for 64DD?

Gregg Mayles: No, this game would not have been possible before. The sheer computing power required to make the vehicles work and the physics involved could not have been done. It's the fact that you can combine anything in any number that makes it such a technical challenge. This is actually the 3rd Banjo 3! We scrapped two other approaches, didn't think they offered a big enough step forward. I bet you didn't expect that! So I would say it started after Ghoulies. But then got scrapped a couple of times. Then I worked on Pinata. Then came back to Banjo again! Oh, and I think I did some puzzles for Mr. Pants too!

The Rare Witch Project: Is there a limit on how many of your vehicle creations you can save? Sorry. I thought i'd ask another one.

Gregg Mayles: There will have to be a limit to stop our software from breaking, but it will be a very large number. Hundreds I'm sure.

Spiral Mountain: What is your own personal favorite level from the N64 Banjo games, and will we be seeing it in some shape or form in B-K:N&B?

Gregg Mayles: I like Rusty Bucket Bay. The design was neat and it all felt 'right'. A lot of people liked Click Clock Woods. I also liked WitchyWorld and Jolly Roger's Lagoon. I thought Grunty Industries was a masterpiece but it was too complicated!

I have a favorite in the new game too, but I'm not telling you what it is! It took just a week to design, whereas some of the levels took two months! Sometimes an idea just works exactly how you expect it to and you can literally get everything right first time. Sometimes it take ages and lots of reworking before things are right. The Showdown Town Map is a real beauty, but that took a lot of hair tearing out to get right. I think a lot of you will love Showdown Town. We've tried to make it a proper 'living' town. There's a police force, lots of shops (with silly names) and townspeople that you can chat to or run over!

Perfect Rare: Why did you decide to make a completely different graphical style for BK3? You could have chosen to use the same style as, say, Kameo or Tooie.

Gregg Mayles: As with Viva Pinata, I wanted a distinctive look. The idea that all the worlds were 'constructed' like the player's vehicles fitted perfectly. Spiral Mountain is still the same though. That looks really nice, and we have some cool stuff planned for it. Imagine 8 years of neglect...Banjo hasn't even mowed his lawn.

The Rare Witch Project: So far, there has been just a glimpse of the things you can do with your vehicles (Propellers, Springs, Weapons). Would it be possible to explain a way to complete a mission that we've not seen, using a vehicle?

Gregg Mayles: Say there is a object that needs to be taken from A to B. How do you do it? Do you make a vehicle with prongs to push it? Do you make a vehicle to carry it? Do you try and take it via water? Do you fly it there? Do you whack it as hard as possible and send it flying? Do you try and pick it up?

That's without deciding how the terrain and the baddies will come into play. Do you go for speed? Do you arm yourself to the teeth and crawl your way there? But remember, the 'better' you complete the task the better your reward.

So it's not just a case of 'complete the challenge and get a Jiggy' anymore. Each challenge has been designed to offer multiple approaches (and some we probably haven't thought of). Even with simple races (which there are some, but nowhere near as many as everyone seems to think) your choice of vehicle is key. There's nothing stopping you from using a plane on a water based race. Some races require you to go on land, in water and in the air. Try building a vehicle for that!

Rare-Extreme: I don't think anyone has talked much about the online aspects of the multiplayer or the solo mode itself. Is the multiplayer going to make much use of Xbox Live and will the co-op feature be available over Xbox Live or just offline? What about official Xbox Live ranking lists, swapping custom vehicles with other players, downloading new vehicle parts, the list is endless... Is Xbox Live going to be a selling point of the game?

Gregg Mayles: I'm not sure whether we are 'officially' talking about the multiplayer yet. But as I said, we have a small sub-team working on it. You can guess the kind of stuff we will have planned. We want to use Live in a way that compliments the radical direction this game has taken. It will not be an afterthought. You'll have to trust us!

[Flawless]

Re: Banjo-Threeie (360)

This is a good read.

Pre-E3 2008: Banjo-Kazooie: Platforming 101
Microsoft shows us the nuts and bolts of a modern day platformer.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a game that you'd do well to keep your eye on. The visual style is great and the possibilities in the gameplay seem almost unlimited. Rare is pushing the boundaries of what a platformer is and, in doing so, is bringing fresh ideas to a genre that has fallen out of favor with gamers. Even with all of the new ideas, it's clear that the team has ensured that it doesn't venture too far from the roots that have made the franchise a hit. The platforming, exploration and open game progression are all there; the game has just put the creativity in the hands of the player. And that's never a bad thing.

Though we got to play through the entire E3 demo early, we've been promised that's not all that Rare and MS have in store for Banjo for this upcoming expo. Stay tuned to IGN for the latest.

Walkthrough of Showdown Town and Banjo Land (must watch).

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