Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts -- specifically, the "Nuts & Bolts" part -- came as a surprise. But, really, who knows what to expect from an all-ages, mascot-driven adventure at the moment? Ratchet & Clank has the action angle covered, you can't very well compete directly with Super Mario Galaxy, and Rare's last foray into the genre -- Xbox 360 launch title Kameo: Elements of Power -- received a mixed reception. So what's left? With LittleBigPlanet on the horizon and user-generated content being pushed harder than ever to casual consumers, it's not really a surprise that Nuts & Bolts is taking a more...creative approach.
I traveled all the way rural Twycross, England to visit Rare (I needed a plane, two trains, and a drive through the sheep-dotted English countryside to get there), and the company's pastoral home base explains a lot about their infectiously creative, colorful catalog of games. There's plenty to see even before you get to the workspaces -- a large pond humming with bird life lies adjacent to their winding driveway, a cadre of bonsai trees donated by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto dots the parking lot, and a nigh-complete Rare museum of games, gadgets and memorabilia greets you from behind glass display cases as you step into the lobby. Work is work, and I'm sure even they take their location for granted -- but for an outsider, it's easy to see how such quiescent surroundings can lend Rare titles the creative spark they're known for.
Or, what they were known for. Ever since Microsoft's $377 million 2002 takeover of the company, Rare's been saddled with cobbling together last-generation leftovers (Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo) for a very discerning "next-gen" audience. Even Viva Piñata -- as great as it turned out -- started life on the Pocket PC platform. Nuts & Bolts represents Rare's first true from-the-ground-up entry into the current gaming landscape, and the result is a very, very interesting direction for the series.
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.'"
And they're doing something quite different. Mumbo Jumbo, the shaman who helped Banjo and Kazooie transform in the first two games, now runs a workshop where you design vehicles. The workshop allows you to build from templates or create something from scratch. The actual construction interface is surprisingly similar to the one found in Sega's 2006 Xbox 360 mech battler Chromehounds, though no one I talked to at Rare admitted to hearing of it. You start with a cockpit, attach various building pieces and extensions to it, and add as many tires as you feel are necessary. You can add wings, springs, and even bits that break away at the touch of a button. And you can always swap pieces out later with better ones if you can find them, as you'll acquire more by discovering them throughout the world.
Once you slap on a coat of paint and give your vehicle a silly name, you're ready to roll. That is, if it rolls. Several of my creations simply toppled over as soon as they appeared in the game world, as they were either too one-sidedly heavy or simply impractical. Nuts & Bolts uses the Havok physics engine, so just about everything's dictated by weight, momentum, and force. It can be frustrating to find out that your dreamboat doesn't float, but mucking around in the editor is an integral part of the experience.
Mayles is very much into the idea of putting that creative power into players' hands: "We looked at how traditional games have approached that -- the designers create the abilities, we give them to the player, and the player can only use the abilities as we've defined [them]. So we thought, 'Can we approach that from a different direction, where the players actually get to define their own abilities so they can choose how they want to complete whatever task they've been set?' And then, suddenly, we had this concept sitting here, this idea of approaching platform games from a different direction, and then we brought the two together."
Of course, you could always go through the game without building a single thing yourself, relying entirety on premade vehicles. The first real mission I tried took place in the rolling hills of Nutty Acres, as Banjo's assistance was required in vacuuming up a patch of coconuts and bringing them back to a giant suction machine (for a good reason, I'm sure). I had a large vacuum truck to drive, though as I was shown earlier by the developers, I could also build a hovering plane with a winch and simply yank the suction machine out of the ground and bring it straight over to the coconuts themselves. I could've also grabbed coconuts one at a time by hand, but where's the fun in that?
In another level, World of Sports, an objective was assigned to get as much distance as possible by jumping off of a massive ramp. The developers showed me several different approaches, including building a hang glider of sorts that breaks away in midair from its central spherical core where Banjo sits, allowing for some lengthy bounces when it hits the ground. These two level examples did a great job of showing off the way the vehicle construction integrates into the actual, ahem, nuts and bolts of the game mechanics. It remains to be seen if this unique design approach can stay fresh for an entire game, though. The building mechanic is engaging and generally works well, but it's tough to envision how it fits into any sensible narrative structure.
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. Kazooie's role has been scaled back to work only with physics-based actions, as she wields a beam-emitting wand that you can use to move objects, flip your vehicle if it falls over, or tweak your creation's construction in the wild without going into the garage to edit.
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.
Nuts & Bolts takes a bit of explanation, apparently, as I haven't even gotten to the story or the multiplayer elements. Online multiplayer features competitive eight-player modes, and -- as you can imagine -- you can again use preset vehicles or design your own. While modes like the King of the Hill variant, Queen of the Knoll (with a giant moving crown to follow), are currently a bit too chaotic to provide more than mindless fun, we're hoping to see team-based objective games, as there is huge potential there. Rare doesn't currently have much to say about the story; suffice it to say, the evil witch Gruntilda (Grunty, affectionately) is back, only now she's a head in a jar propped up on a constructed body, and you'll be able to challenge her in each level if you like.
Between optional objectives such as that, the multiplayer, and a grading system to encourage replaying challenges, the game should have plenty of content, but I'm most intrigued to find out whether Nuts & Bolts comes together in the cohesive, creatively invigorating manner I'm hoping it does. It's certainly new and exciting...but when playing, I had a tough time determining whether I was actually having fun or was simply so fascinated by the novelty and entertained by the vehicle-building that it was compelling enough on those merits alone. Or maybe that's the point? Either way, it'll be an interesting, creatively empowering fall season for gamers.
I'm hella disappointed. I've been waiting for this game for over 5 years and didn't expect it end up like this. :ermm:
I traveled all the way rural Twycross, England to visit Rare (I needed a plane, two trains, and a drive through the sheep-dotted English countryside to get there), and the company's pastoral home base explains a lot about their infectiously creative, colorful catalog of games. There's plenty to see even before you get to the workspaces -- a large pond humming with bird life lies adjacent to their winding driveway, a cadre of bonsai trees donated by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto dots the parking lot, and a nigh-complete Rare museum of games, gadgets and memorabilia greets you from behind glass display cases as you step into the lobby. Work is work, and I'm sure even they take their location for granted -- but for an outsider, it's easy to see how such quiescent surroundings can lend Rare titles the creative spark they're known for.
Or, what they were known for. Ever since Microsoft's $377 million 2002 takeover of the company, Rare's been saddled with cobbling together last-generation leftovers (Perfect Dark Zero, Kameo) for a very discerning "next-gen" audience. Even Viva Piñata -- as great as it turned out -- started life on the Pocket PC platform. Nuts & Bolts represents Rare's first true from-the-ground-up entry into the current gaming landscape, and the result is a very, very interesting direction for the series.
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.'"
And they're doing something quite different. Mumbo Jumbo, the shaman who helped Banjo and Kazooie transform in the first two games, now runs a workshop where you design vehicles. The workshop allows you to build from templates or create something from scratch. The actual construction interface is surprisingly similar to the one found in Sega's 2006 Xbox 360 mech battler Chromehounds, though no one I talked to at Rare admitted to hearing of it. You start with a cockpit, attach various building pieces and extensions to it, and add as many tires as you feel are necessary. You can add wings, springs, and even bits that break away at the touch of a button. And you can always swap pieces out later with better ones if you can find them, as you'll acquire more by discovering them throughout the world.
Once you slap on a coat of paint and give your vehicle a silly name, you're ready to roll. That is, if it rolls. Several of my creations simply toppled over as soon as they appeared in the game world, as they were either too one-sidedly heavy or simply impractical. Nuts & Bolts uses the Havok physics engine, so just about everything's dictated by weight, momentum, and force. It can be frustrating to find out that your dreamboat doesn't float, but mucking around in the editor is an integral part of the experience.
Mayles is very much into the idea of putting that creative power into players' hands: "We looked at how traditional games have approached that -- the designers create the abilities, we give them to the player, and the player can only use the abilities as we've defined [them]. So we thought, 'Can we approach that from a different direction, where the players actually get to define their own abilities so they can choose how they want to complete whatever task they've been set?' And then, suddenly, we had this concept sitting here, this idea of approaching platform games from a different direction, and then we brought the two together."
Of course, you could always go through the game without building a single thing yourself, relying entirety on premade vehicles. The first real mission I tried took place in the rolling hills of Nutty Acres, as Banjo's assistance was required in vacuuming up a patch of coconuts and bringing them back to a giant suction machine (for a good reason, I'm sure). I had a large vacuum truck to drive, though as I was shown earlier by the developers, I could also build a hovering plane with a winch and simply yank the suction machine out of the ground and bring it straight over to the coconuts themselves. I could've also grabbed coconuts one at a time by hand, but where's the fun in that?
In another level, World of Sports, an objective was assigned to get as much distance as possible by jumping off of a massive ramp. The developers showed me several different approaches, including building a hang glider of sorts that breaks away in midair from its central spherical core where Banjo sits, allowing for some lengthy bounces when it hits the ground. These two level examples did a great job of showing off the way the vehicle construction integrates into the actual, ahem, nuts and bolts of the game mechanics. It remains to be seen if this unique design approach can stay fresh for an entire game, though. The building mechanic is engaging and generally works well, but it's tough to envision how it fits into any sensible narrative structure.
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. Kazooie's role has been scaled back to work only with physics-based actions, as she wields a beam-emitting wand that you can use to move objects, flip your vehicle if it falls over, or tweak your creation's construction in the wild without going into the garage to edit.
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.
Nuts & Bolts takes a bit of explanation, apparently, as I haven't even gotten to the story or the multiplayer elements. Online multiplayer features competitive eight-player modes, and -- as you can imagine -- you can again use preset vehicles or design your own. While modes like the King of the Hill variant, Queen of the Knoll (with a giant moving crown to follow), are currently a bit too chaotic to provide more than mindless fun, we're hoping to see team-based objective games, as there is huge potential there. Rare doesn't currently have much to say about the story; suffice it to say, the evil witch Gruntilda (Grunty, affectionately) is back, only now she's a head in a jar propped up on a constructed body, and you'll be able to challenge her in each level if you like.
Between optional objectives such as that, the multiplayer, and a grading system to encourage replaying challenges, the game should have plenty of content, but I'm most intrigued to find out whether Nuts & Bolts comes together in the cohesive, creatively invigorating manner I'm hoping it does. It's certainly new and exciting...but when playing, I had a tough time determining whether I was actually having fun or was simply so fascinated by the novelty and entertained by the vehicle-building that it was compelling enough on those merits alone. Or maybe that's the point? Either way, it'll be an interesting, creatively empowering fall season for gamers.
I'm hella disappointed. I've been waiting for this game for over 5 years and didn't expect it end up like this. :ermm:
