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Well, the level editor is coming along for the first game, and by early next year it'll have a bigger release. Soon you'll be playing Banjo Kazooie Romhacks! (Just never play Kaizo Kazooie World)
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Dec 14, 2014 21:38
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| # ? Jun 9, 2024 16:47 |
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SystemLogoff posted:Well, the level editor is coming along for the first game, and by early next year it'll have a bigger release. Banjo Kaizo-y.
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Dec 14, 2014 21:40
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psyman posted:I'm tired of people parroting this line that RARE were ruined the moment Microsft took them over. To me there's been 2 stages, pre- and post-Kinect RARE. It's completely true that Rare didn't just suddenly start making games ranging from mediocre to pretty good when Microsoft bought them. I have a little knowledge on this having read a few articles about the acquisition of Rare and trying to get my head around why they were sold in the first place. Here's my understanding of it: The blame for Rare's decline actually lands in two places. The first is with Nintendo itself. During the time when Rare was a 3rd party company with Nintendo, only half the company was actually owned by Nintendo. The rest was owned by the Stamper brothers (the co-founders). At some point, Rare needed Nintendo to buy the rest of the company in order for them to keep existing. Unfortunately, during the N64's lifespan, Rare had not sold nearly as many units of their games for Nintendo as they had done in the past with their previous games such as Donkey Kong Country (which to be fair is a pretty hard act to follow) . At this point Nintendo made an executive decision and decided they did not need Rare anymore and declined the offer to buy the other half of the company. This decision was also partly made because of lackluster sales of the single game that Rare did manage to make for the Gamecube: StarFox Adventures which was, as some people know, not orginally intended to be a Star Fox game. It was originally titled "Dinosaur Planet" and was meant to star a different protagonist but Nintendo worried the game wouldn't sell so decided that Star Fox should be in it. The other half of the blame lands with Microsoft who paid through the nose to acquire Rare over other potential buyers including Activision. Over time, people responsible for a lot of the games we grew up with were made redundant or simply quit of their own volition. Chris Seavor who directed Conker's Bad Fur Day (and also voiced Conker and Grunty) was laid off as well as Chris Sutherland who was the lead programmer on Battletoads, all 3 Donkey Kong Country games, Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie as well as being the voice of both Banjo and Kazooie and the Killer Instinct announcer. I'm pretty sure that Grant Kirkhope (composer on nearly every Rare game from Goldeneye onward) left of his own accord and the co-founders Tim and Chris Stamper left either because they had had enough or didn't like the way Microsoft were handling things with the company. Aside from all that Microsoft don't really seem to know what to do with Rare. In the time they've been with Microsoft they've made one Perfect Dark game, a remake of Conker's Bad Fur Day, and one Banjo-Kazooie game, not exactly utilizing all of what Rare has to offer in terms of their independent properties. And now yes they are seemingly stuck making Kinect Sports games, though there is a possibility of something non-kinect realted on the horizon according to the head of the Xbox division. who knows. Anyway that's the closest thing I have to explanation on why Rare is the way it is. It's cobbled together from a bunch of different sources and is partly based on hearsay and probably isn't factually accurate but that's what I've gathered sorry for the wall of text :V
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Dec 14, 2014 23:29
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Speaking of Chris Seavor, he also voiced Spinal in Killer Instinct. That guy does the best laughs. 
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Dec 14, 2014 23:56
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I think that the biggest problem with this game is that you can't use your custom vehicles in the open world. I understand why they did it (so they could gate content behind trolley upgrades), but it ruins most of the joy of creating new vehicles when you're not allowed to play with them outside of the designated playing areas. At the very least, they should have let you have free vehicle choice for exploring levels, even if the main hub zone was locked to the trolley.
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Dec 15, 2014 00:03
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Dirk the Average posted:At the very least, they should have let you have free vehicle choice for exploring levels, even if the main hub zone was locked to the trolley. But you can use whatever vehicle you want inside the levels.
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Dec 15, 2014 00:06
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Dirk the Average posted:I think that the biggest problem with this game is that you can't use your custom vehicles in the open world. I understand why they did it (so they could gate content behind trolley upgrades), but it ruins most of the joy of creating new vehicles when you're not allowed to play with them outside of the designated playing areas. At the very least, they should have let you have free vehicle choice for exploring levels, even if the main hub zone was locked to the trolley. They do. You can build a giant dong and drive around with that everywhere BUT Showdown Town.
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Dec 15, 2014 00:20
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Hedrigall posted:But you can use whatever vehicle you want inside the levels. I spent hours flinging some zippy plane car hybrid around nutty acres, trying to time flying through the cogs or punting clockwork animals off the cloud mechanism. And I actually enjoyed the metroid-lite gating in the hub world, as when you're playing it properly it gives a nice sense of achievement hunting out the next set of boxes and jiggys that your upgrades give you access to. Then you playthrough a second time using exploits to smugly hoover up 2/3rds of them from the get-go.
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Dec 15, 2014 00:32
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Hedrigall posted:But you can use whatever vehicle you want inside the levels. This right here, combined with Dex having broken the game to get more Fun Parts early, is the whole reason I suggested banning all trolleys. Making wacky vehicles IS the fun part, both of playing AND watching someone play - I would rather see someone drive around in some lovecraftian dongmobile than a boring wheelbrick or worse a trolley. Honestly most of the people bitching about "okay i maed car now what" just makes me think of someone loading up Space Engineers, making a grey rectangle with thrusters and then going "is this the whole game? gently caress this" 
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Dec 15, 2014 01:05
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TwistedSynapse posted:Honestly most of the people bitching about "okay i maed car now what" just makes me think of someone loading up Space Engineers, making a grey rectangle with thrusters and then going "is this the whole game? gently caress this" Im awful at the whole "Build the cool thing" games so this is exactly how I feel about Space Engineers. I like to mine in the game I guess???
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Dec 15, 2014 01:08
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Vilemoon posted:There are a ton of pieces to this game that add cool stuff, but doesnt make it great. The gameplay is bland and the only real enjoyable part is creating vehicles, which is intuitive as hell. But all the other parts? Having to do challenges in order to get tokens and jiggies is one thing but when all of them are "go here, do small thing, you did it." Someone earlier mentioned a multiplayer minigame where you play darts with you as the dart, yeah? Why couldn't they have put half that amount of imagination into the story missions?
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Dec 15, 2014 01:15
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dijon du jour posted:Someone earlier mentioned a multiplayer minigame where you play darts with you as the dart, yeah? Why couldn't they have put half that amount of imagination into the story missions? The story missions do get more creative later on, if I'm remembering right. I definitely feel like they could have done a bit more with it too, but I can't think of a lot of missions off the top of my head I hate. At the same time, the start of nutty acres was a little bland here, I admit.
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Dec 15, 2014 01:22
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There are a few creative missions out there, but there are far too many missions which tend to be reused. Jinjo challenges and races seem to be the biggest ones if I remember right. Also, personal nitpick, but all the stages are incredibly empty. Very big, but little to do in them or see beyond rush from one mission to the next. With that said, if you haven't tried this yet, try making a flying vehicle and flying up to the top of Nutty Acres. Its kinda an interesting lil thing you normally will never see if I remember right.
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Dec 15, 2014 04:27
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Hedrigall posted:But you can use whatever vehicle you want inside the levels. Oh, neat! I wasn't aware of that since it hasn't been shown off in the LP yet. I'd really like to see a couple of minutes of randomly messing around with what vehicles can do in levels, especially now that flight and better wheels are available.
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Dec 15, 2014 05:22
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You know what other game had a really cool system for building stuff that was inside a pretty mediocre game? Spore. I loved making weird poo poo in Spore. 
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Dec 15, 2014 10:37
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Oh man don't even get me started on Spore - I loved making nutso eldritch horrors for the game to use as my random enemy species. I also once made a species of dapper tophat wearing scorpions Now I wish I still had some of those screenshots.
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Dec 15, 2014 11:38
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tlarn posted:You know what other game had a really cool system for building stuff that was inside a pretty mediocre game? Spore. I think Yahtzee was kind of on point about Spore. It was more like five different games on one disc, and none of them was finished when the game shipped. This is still more than can be said for Nuts & Bolts.
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Dec 16, 2014 06:11
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Thinking about it a bit more, what kills Nuts and Bolts for me is the mission system. As a side thing that is done occasionally, it's a good idea and it can serve to tutorialize the player on good and bad vehicle construction mechanics, as well as introduce new parts early so that the player is familiar with them when they're unlocked in general. As a core mechanic though, it just makes the levels feel so lifeless. Half of the fun of a collectathon is the exploration and puzzle solving. There's a lot that they could have done with the system to make collection a hell of a lot more interesting, especially if they ditched the mission system entirely or went with a Mario 64 style mission system where the "mission" you select changes the level a bit and renders certain puzzles solvable or not. The completely customizable vehicles would even be an asset in this case. Getting parts that allow flight early, or getting parts that allow sequence breaking in levels makes players feel clever for "outsmarting" the developers. Play on those feelings and place Jiggies in situations where there's an obvious intended route to get to them or puzzle to solve, and don't fret if there's an unintended solution that's a lot easier (so long as the same unintended solution isn't the solution to almost every problem).
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Dec 16, 2014 07:13
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Dirk the Average posted:Thinking about it a bit more, what kills Nuts and Bolts for me is the mission system. As a side thing that is done occasionally, it's a good idea and it can serve to tutorialize the player on good and bad vehicle construction mechanics, as well as introduce new parts early so that the player is familiar with them when they're unlocked in general. As a core mechanic though, it just makes the levels feel so lifeless. Half of the fun of a collectathon is the exploration and puzzle solving. There's a lot that they could have done with the system to make collection a hell of a lot more interesting, especially if they ditched the mission system entirely or went with a Mario 64 style mission system where the "mission" you select changes the level a bit and renders certain puzzles solvable or not. What you mean is they should have made an actual Banjo Kazooie game with vehicles, where the missions are little side challenges and the actual purpose of driving a vehicle around the level normally is to push and carry and navigate things like a standard game.
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Dec 16, 2014 14:44
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That or something like "Hey, look, there's a Jiggy on top of that thing! We don't have flying parts here, but there's a ramp over there so maybe we could launch over to it... Or build a stair-o-tron to get up... Or try and knock it down with a catapult contraption..." This would also be a good reason for having them as actual physics objects. So far it doesn't look like they actually do anything interesting with that, it just means stray boxes can knock collectibles away from you. But instead, the Jiggy doesn't exist until you talk to Bottles-but-a-wizard and you have to use a really clumsy thing to go a long circuitous route in less than a minute.
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Dec 16, 2014 17:12
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Dr. Buttass posted:I think Yahtzee was kind of on point about Spore. It was more like five different games on one disc, and none of them was finished when the game shipped. I don't know. Nuts & Bolts can be fun. Spore just sucked all around.
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Dec 16, 2014 22:35
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You abandoned your Shovel Knight LP for this?! You are equal parts brave and stupid, Dex. At least judging from the first 13 minutes of your first video, it has the humor of a Banjo-Kazooie game, if not the inspired environments that made the first two games memorable. As for Rare, there were signs of decline even before Microsoft took them over. See- Star Fox Adventures, Donkey Kong 64. It's a shame that Nintendo treated them as expendable in the later years of their partnership, and I hope they don't pull the same stunt with Retro Studios. They still have more franchises to reinvigorate.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:48
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Y-Hat posted:You abandoned your Shovel Knight LP for this?! You are equal parts brave and stupid, Dex. At least judging from the first 13 minutes of your first video, it has the humor of a Banjo-Kazooie game, if not the inspired environments that made the first two games memorable. I would argue that Banjo Tooie had some signs as well. Conker's Bad Fur Day, too, for the reason it came about. They were on a slow crumble for a pretty long time.
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Dec 17, 2014 00:58
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Cheez posted:I would argue that Banjo Tooie had some signs as well. Conker's Bad Fur Day, too, for the reason it came about. They were on a slow crumble for a pretty long time. Also, I just finished the first video. They made some really questionable decisions. None of them looks like it makes the game unplayable, but it does look annoying and kind of a chore to play. And as has been said many times, it's not a Banjo-Kazooie game.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:23
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The big thing that Banjo-Tooie had was the metroidvania feel, where you got new abilities in later levels that you needed to get jiggies in earlier levels, plus how the various worlds were connected in non-standard ways. Yeah, there was a lot of collecting to do, but it was spread out enough that it didn't feel like a slog. DK64 kind of took the BT formula too far; it had all the parts of a good collectathon platformer, but then multiplied everything by 5 and added in constant character-swapping.
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Dec 17, 2014 01:37
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Cheez posted:I would argue that Banjo Tooie had some signs as well. Conker's Bad Fur Day, too, for the reason it came about. They were on a slow crumble for a pretty long time. I've never been able to make it all the way through the story, but Conker's multiplayer was one of my favorites at the time.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:30
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People didn't like DK64?! I made my parents get me that specifically so I could play Perfect Dark (it came with a free memory expansion for the n64) and I ended up liking it better than PD.
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Dec 17, 2014 02:34
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insanityv2 posted:People didn't like DK64?! I made my parents get me that specifically so I could play Perfect Dark (it came with a free memory expansion for the n64) and I ended up liking it better than PD. DK64 wasn't bad, per se, it just wasn't really that good. I mean, it's big, and there's a lot of content, and it has a certain charm. But parts of it are too big or just a pain to traverse, the gameplay is often repetitive, there's the lag, and the (as was mentioned before) constant switching of Kongs, and it's just... broken and glitchy as all hell. Seriously, it is probably one of the glitchiest Nintendo games I've ever played that wasn't first gen Pokemon. Plus, I personally found everything in it to be less memorable and charming than Banjo. I think I remember hearing it described as "like Banjo, but bigger and not as good," and I'd say that's pretty accurate. That's not to say it's terrible. I mean, I loved it as a kid, too - it was big and big things were inherently awesome when you were a kid no matter how broken they were - but even as a kid I think I preferred Banjo. Come to think of it I don't think I ever actually personally beat DK64.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:49
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Evil Mastermind posted:The big thing that Banjo-Tooie had was the metroidvania feel, where you got new abilities in later levels that you needed to get jiggies in earlier levels, plus how the various worlds were connected in non-standard ways. Yeah, there was a lot of collecting to do, but it was spread out enough that it didn't feel like a slog. I actually prefer Tooie to the first game because of all that. It actually felt like a big game because of the interconnected-ness of everything. It didn't feel bloated like DK64 did. Plus you could turn into a T-Rex which was neat.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:52
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My N64 tier list is basically B-T>B-K>DK64, though DK64 is by no means bad. It's that it has less personality than the Banjo games. Also, the fine line between 'needs more content' and 'too much poo poo to do' is not only crossed by DK and his crew but they were miles away before they stopped to wonder where they were. For context, last time I checked there was a world record for 'most collectables in a video game' and DK64 was the record holder. You only need 100 Golden Bananas, 4 Crowns, and the Nintendo & Rare Medals to complete the game. The game has 201 Bananas. Getting to 201% completion isn't a journey. It's an undertaking from which many lesser men went 'gently caress this'.
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Dec 17, 2014 04:56
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All Frogs posted:I actually prefer Tooie to the first game because of all that. It actually felt like a big game because of the interconnected-ness of everything. It didn't feel bloated like DK64 did. Plus you could turn into a T-Rex which was neat. Likewise. I love the expansion of all the game concepts, how you had to backtrack with new abilities, things like that. In BK you could do every stage 100% the first time you visited it (except for the jiggies in the desert/winter stages), which is fine, but BT made the game larger but not tedious.
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Dec 17, 2014 05:56
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Evil Mastermind posted:Likewise. I love the expansion of all the game concepts, how you had to backtrack with new abilities, things like that. It helps that BT is one of the best-designed platformers made for a long time. It introduced new abilities (Especially the character-splitting) and added other little things to the mix as well (FPS sections, different egg types for puzzles and enemy interactions, an entire third character you had to use for some puzzles) to keep things fresh. The levels were extremely varied, the characters and dialogue were all interesting or funny, and the bosses were legitimately fun to play. All of that on its own made a good game, but Rare tossed in the usual amazing soundtrack and knit all those aspects together in a way that complemented each other. BK was a good game, but BT is one of a handful of examples you can point to as a sequel that took the core mechanics of the original game, and improved on everything across the board.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:02
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insanityv2 posted:People didn't like DK64?! I made my parents get me that specifically so I could play Perfect Dark (it came with a free memory expansion for the n64) and I ended up liking it better than PD. I guess when I put it that way, I'm saying that there's one problem with the game (padding), but there are two major aspects to it. It's not a bad game, but it's certainly not a masterpiece. One of my favorite Something Awful LPs is Dazzling Addar's DK64 LP because his co-commentators illustrate this problem so well that by the end, he agrees with them. It's fun to watch him go from "This is one of my favorite games ever" to "Wow, this game actually isn't that good."
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Dec 17, 2014 06:05
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Y-Hat posted:I guess when I put it that way, I'm saying that there's one problem with the game (padding), but there are two major aspects to it. It's not a bad game, but it's certainly not a masterpiece. One of my favorite Something Awful LPs is Dazzling Addar's DK64 LP because his co-commentators illustrate this problem so well that by the end, he agrees with them. It's fun to watch him go from "This is one of my favorite games ever" to "Wow, this game actually isn't that good." Seeing that sort of progression in a Let's Play is one of my favorite things. ThornBrain's Bomberman Hero LP was another good example of this phenomenon.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:07
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The thing is that Banjo Kazooie was designed for you to 100% every stage the first time through with the exceptions of the aforementioned desert/winter stages whereas Tooie was designed explicitly for you to revisit levels multiple times hence stuff like the train. Prior to Tooie, inter-level connectivity wasn't a big thing in platformers with BK's desert/winter switch-up being one of the few notable exceptions so for Tooie to base its entire game design around this concept was unheard of meaning it really was the first and only of its kind.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:13
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BK was pretty much the first big platformer after Super Mario 64, wasn't it?
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Dec 17, 2014 06:24
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Evil Mastermind posted:BK was pretty much the first big platformer after Super Mario 64, wasn't it? Technically Crash Bandicoot was released the same year as Mario 64 though whether it came before or after depends on which release date you're looking at. Nevertheless, CB was successful enough to get two games before BK was even released.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:40
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Y-Hat posted:There are two major problems with DK64. Number one, all you're collecting are golden bananas. Every other pickup is unnecessary padding. Number two, there are so many areas in the game that are arbitrarily off-limits to all but one Kong that it feels even more padded. I remember when he got to the DK Isle collectathon video, and somewhere along the way he goes, "This is a bad game!" And you just hear the sound of his innocence from the intro dying.  Kinda an accurate representation of someone like me playing this game actually.
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Dec 17, 2014 06:42
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Elfface posted:That or something like Pretty much this, yeah. Make vehicles central to the whole shebang, but give the player options and present challenges to them with the environment rather than going through the whole mission-based thing. If you have to do a mission based thing, Mario 64 does it well with the idea of the different stars changing the levels subtly, while still having the bulk of the stars accessible regardless of which option is chosen. I like the idea of the prebuilt vehicle challenges in theory, but they really need some creative space for the player to use vehicles in "unintended" ways (like the shortcut in the tiger race), and they need to be few and far between (for a Mario 64/BK comparison, one per world, two at most and only rarely)
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Dec 17, 2014 07:08
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Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64 is absolutely a loving masterpiece in a way that DK64 absolutely was not. What they achieved technically with BFD, and with the humour was just marvellous. Even at the time people thought DK64 was a bit over the top when it came to the collecting. It was derivative rather than innovative.
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Dec 17, 2014 07:13
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