Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (B-K 3)

[Green-Shirt Q]

Well, in case you haven't heard, the latest Banjo (http://banjo-kazooie.com/)-Kazooie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banjo-Threeie) game is being released on November 11th (for us North Americans) onto the Xbox 360! How do you feel about that?

Personally, I'm looking forward to it quite a bit, but there are quite a few people out there who believe the series has been ruined by the vehicles. I respectfully disagree with the belief that this new form of gameplay is an automatic death-sentence for the series' greatness, but I suppose it's too early to say that since I haven't actually played it.

Anyway, this thread is for discussion on the next game specifically, but this could also be discussion for all Banjo-Kazooie games in general.

[Grim Greyscale]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I was rather apprehensive when they first announced it, but it seems, so far, that they've done it pretty well. Irritating that the preorder bonus is as of yet not available in Australia, though. They need to work on that.

[Albub]

Mayhaps the vehicles aren't the death knell of Banjo Kazooie as a franchise, but it's certainly not a good sign for Banjo Kazooie as I know and love it. I don't blame the developers for wanting to try something new, but when I hear the words Banjo Kazooie, vehicles are one of the last things to cross my mind. The original Banjo Kazooie was the first great 3D platformer I ever played, and it kind of makes me sad that the new generation of gamers won't be able to say the same about their Banjo Kazooie game.

[Green-Shirt Q]

Mayhaps the vehicles aren't the death knell of Banjo Kazooie as a franchise, but it's certainly not a good sign for Banjo Kazooie as I know and love it. I don't blame the developers for wanting to try something new, but when I hear the words Banjo Kazooie, vehicles are one of the last things to cross my mind. The original Banjo Kazooie was the first great 3D platformer I ever played, and it kind of makes me sad that the new generation of gamers won't be able to say the same about their Banjo Kazooie game.

From what I've seen, Banjo-Kazooie 3 is still going to be a platformer. All the way. It's just that instead of running around jumping, they're driving around jumping. Seriously. The vechicles jump! There's still supposed to be a lot of platformer in it, except the moves are more flexible because you decide what the vehicles can do.

Plus, Banjo can get out of the vehicles, too.

[Jibar]

Knowing Rare there'll be plenty of jokes about the poor fan reaction.
And the fact that it's not called Banjo Threeie.

I'm another fan who doesn't like the look of it at all.
Just because Banjo can get out doesn't mean vehicles aren't still obviously the main focus of the game.
I'll grab a demo of it, try it out at least, but I doubt I'll actually buy it.

[Dragor]

I.... I didn't know there was going to be a third. I never got Tooie, but I had a whale of a time with the original on the N64.

I'll end up getting it at some point. I didn't even like the gameplay much, but the humour (as with most Rare games) was truly classic. Oh, Loggo the toilet, how many laughs you provided to my childhood... *fazes out*

Ahem. The vehicle aspect could be good, but I'm still doubting it slightly, for now. It could be good, could be bad. I'll reserve my judgement for now.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm optimistic about it. Rare has consistently turned out good games, and this looks like it'll still have the same sense of wacky humour that made the originals so awesome.

Even if the gameplay has changed, it still looks like it'll be fun. That's good enough for me.

[ocato]

I only played the first one, but it was immensely fun. The N64 was a golden age for platformers that I still long for. Granted I've fallen off the game-wagon hard since then.

But still, heck, I think I need to steal my sister's N64 and get Mario 64 and Banjo off of ebay or something. That sounds like a solidly amusing way to spend the next 6 months.

[Drascin]

I only played the first one, but it was immensely fun. The N64 was a golden age for platformers that I still long for. Granted I've fallen off the game-wagon hard since then.

But still, heck, I think I need to steal my sister's N64 and get Mario 64 and Banjo off of ebay or something. That sounds like a solidly amusing way to spend the next 6 months.

If you loved Mario 64, you really should loot someone's Wii for Super Mario Galaxy. The amount of throwbacks, nostalgia, and all-around awesome gameplay is great for people like us, still nostalgic for the old SNES-N64 days.

[Fiery Diamond]

As someone who was incredibly sad when Rare went over to doing stuff for the Xbox instead of staying with Nintendo, I can't be happy about this game, no matter how good it is. That said, I think I agree with Albub.

Also, I'm wondering how many fans they'll get to play the game - the gamer overlap between the Xbox systems and the Nintendo systems isn't really all that high, compared to the overlap for Nintendo and Playstation. How many Xbox 360 players actually played the original BK games?

-Fiery Diamond

[[TS] Shadow]

I'm really mad at Nintendo for selling Rare to Microsoft now: I've been waiting for this game for years and I don't own an Xbox 360! This is the ONLY game I'd ever want on that thing, and I'm not getting a system for ONE game.

It still sucks, though. Banjo Tooie is one of my favorite games of all time, and I've been hoping for Banjo Threeie for 8 years! And now I can't play it!

[Ranis]

If this game had Banjo killing zombies, it would be more accurate to Banjo-Kazooie goodness. The vehicles thing is crap and as such there is no Banjo Kazooie 3; there is only one and two.

[starwoof]

I put 89 hours onto my first file of the original banjo-kazooie, and this game just hurts my head. I literally feel physical pain when I look at this game.

Still... I'll probably play it...

[Rogue 7]

If this game had Banjo killing zombies, it would be more accurate to Banjo-Kazooie goodness. The vehicles thing is crap and as such there is no Banjo Kazooie 3; there is only one and two.

Dude, don't write it off before it's even out yet. I'm a bit apprehensive, but I'm still looking forward to this. Apparently the original is going to be out on the XBLA, so that's a plus that I'll be able to play it- and if they get Banjo-Tooie, so much the better- I barely played it.

One thing I hope is that the soundtrack is up to snuff. The original soundtrack was amazing for its sheer creativity and style, and I hope this one lives up to that.

[Crispy Dave]

The first Banjo was the first game I ever owned and still is one of the greatest ive played if this game does suck I will take a crap on the head of the lead designer.

[Khanderas]

B-K was an excellent platformer, many new ideas or atleast implemented in new way.
B-Twooe I liked less, but that is probelbly because I stopped playing the n64, didnt see the game sold anywhere and I did play it on an emulator. The experience was quite cheapened by that. :(
The sequel should have been out earlier and promoted.

But B-K with little carts and busses ? Do not intrest me at all as a concept.


Then again Jak and Dexter shifted from pure platformer in the first part (with a racing minigame), to Guns, cars and darker atmosphere in the second, and a great focus on cars in the third.
That did work out ok though, even though there was a considerable hump to get past in the second one.

[Dumbledore lives]

I don't know about the new game, and I'm apprehensive about the new focus but I really love the fact that the original Banjo is coming to Xbox Live and I can almost guarantee I'll buy that, if not the new one. I've played and beaten the first one, as well as the second one and I own an Xbox 360. Hooray for me.

[Destro_Yersul]

If this game had Banjo killing zombies, it would be more accurate to Banjo-Kazooie goodness. The vehicles thing is crap and as such there is no Banjo Kazooie 3; there is only one and two.

So what you're saying is They Changed It, Now It Sucks (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks)? Have some faith in Rare, it isn't even out yet.

[Green-Shirt Q]

If this game had Banjo killing zombies, it would be more accurate to Banjo-Kazooie goodness. The vehicles thing is crap and as such there is no Banjo Kazooie 3; there is only one and two.

I don't think it's crap yet. The vehicle building apperently means you'll have a lot more flexibility over your adventure, due to the fact you can decide what Banjo and Kazooie can do depending on what parts you have. Apparently, a lot of the parts are the equivalent to moves, and I've seen a video where Rare is trying to explain this as obviously as possible by comparing various machine functions with old moves (they compared a jumping gizmo you can put on the vehicle to the crouching-jump move, a jet pack to Kazooie's hovering move, an egg canon to Kazooie's egg firering, and the planes to Kazooie's flight) to try and convince the viewers that they don't have anything to worry about and Banjo has improved. I suppose it still has to be seen whether they screwed it or given Banjo a great new thing.

Personally, I think the vehicles are a great improvement, or at least a good concept. Personally having to do the same thing over and over and over again with only having one move to do the task has the capacity to become tedious. My only personal worry is that, with flexibility comes vagueness, and the task may be hard to figure out how to do. This may mean the next Banjo game may have a new added quality of being really hard for the players to figure out what to do.

And one more thing, if there's only Banjo-Kazooie one and two, what happend to Grunty's revenge? You forgot about that one. :smallwink::smalltongue:

[Grim Greyscale]

The demo is out now. Rather large file, so I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but, eh...

EDIT: Ok, having played through the demo for a bit: The game is really rather good. My only complaint is that the demo has waaaay too few parts, with the end result of not really being able to build anything, because all it'd do is be the same as your default vehicles. Still fun, though.

[Green-Shirt Q]

YAY! I've finally got the game! :smallbiggrin:

So far the game seems really great with what little I've played of it, but it is very different from past Banjo games. A lot more different then I expected, at least for now.

The vehicle is kind've hard to drive since I only have the crapiest parts so far, and I've gotten quite frustrated at one point, but I assume the vehicles will be better the more I play once I get used to it and get better parts.

Another problem I think it has is that the font of the text is far too small and too fast for me to read all of it, and during the opening movie it made things a little confusing.

But, I remain very optimistic about it. The humor of the game is very hilarious, and almost makes up for everything else.

I recommend you buying it anyway, even if you feel this had wrecked Banjo. You may be pleasently surprised. Or it may live up to your crummy expectations completely depending on how tolerant you are of the tutorial, which was quite disappointing at first.

[Haruki-kun]

Shadow;5179070']It still sucks, though. Banjo Tooie is one of my favorite games of all time, and I've been hoping for Banjo Threeie for 8 years! And now I can't play it!

8 Years... Wow, it really has been a long time. :smalleek:

Well, I'll consider getting it. ToS:2 comes first, though. :smalltongue:

[hanzo66]

At least they're still leaving in the weird Sound-Effect talk that the characters do...

[RPGuru1331]

Man, I didn't realize how good Nintendo had it with Mario til just now. Aside from the Mario Party games, which just arne't that great even at what they're built to do, they can do whatever they want with Mario, and people just aren't going to yell because they're willing to see if the final product is good or not. Why don't other companies get that kind of leeway?

[LoopyZebra]

This is a great game. Has anyone figured out how to get the Terrarium of Terror game sphere into its plinth though? I can't figure it out.

[Drascin]

Man, I didn't realize how good Nintendo had it with Mario til just now. Aside from the Mario Party games, which just arne't that great even at what they're built to do, they can do whatever they want with Mario, and people just aren't going to yell because they're willing to see if the final product is good or not. Why don't other companies get that kind of leeway?

Because for the most part (excluding, as you say, Party) the Mario games are good and fun, while most spinoffs/genreshifts from other companies tend to be... well, really bad. One has to release at least a couple non-sucky spinoffs before one gets some faith, because the default thought in everyone's heads is going to be "okay, there's about a 75% chance this sucks balls". Apart from Nintendo, there are barely three or four other companies with a good enough track record to keep people from thinking that.

The fact that Rare seems to have lost a lot of its spark in the latest years (I refuse to believe Zero is an actual Perfect Dark game) does not exactly help - before, Rare could say they were doing even a brain training game and the hardcore market would still look at them impatient, because they were the best, and they could make it work and be awesome. But now people have lost that kind of faith in Rare.

Still, I don't think it will be that bad. Inferior to Banjo-Tooie? Well, yes, but like 98% of all games developed ever since it came out were also inferior to Banjo-Tooie, so I can hardly fault it for that :smallwink:. But examined by itself, I think it will be well worth a buy if I ever get a 360.

[Green-Shirt Q]

This is a great game. Has anyone figured out how to get the Terrarium of Terror game sphere into its plinth though? I can't figure it out.

Have you figured it out by now? Because, having just reached that part, I too need to know that. If you've reach that part, or anybody else reached that part, please tell me.

Also, some other judgement on the game's characters: What the heck happened to Banjo?! He's rude and whiney and makes snappy comebacks and makes fun of Bottles and complains about his tasks! Those are usually Kazooie's things! Banjo should be nice and polite and helpful like in Banjo-Kazooie and Tooie! :smalleek:

And I certainly think they could've come up with some more, interesting characters instead of just three more. I know this game isn't like the previous ones in many other respects but I do think they could've come up with many new characters like they did in Banjo-Tooie.

[Grim Greyscale]

*snrk*

You haven't figured that out? I didn't think it was so hard.

Anyway, first, you take the game globe over to that tunnel in the moat that surrounds Uptown. Deflate your floaters, and go through the tunnel. On the other side, there's a Mumbo Switch Thingy. Turn it. That lowers the water. Then grab the game globe, drag it through the tunnel now that the water is down, and take it up the slope to the plinth.

[LoopyZebra]

Grim has the right method (though I just dragged the globe while underwater), but you need the scuba gear to do it. You get the gear from a Grunty challenge in the Jiggoseum. I didn't know there was more gear to get, so I was trying to get in there through jumps and what not.

I haven't played it in a couple days because I've been busy, but would anyone like to get together an online match?

EDIT: The gear's in Act 4 of the Jiggoseum, I believe.

[Green-Shirt Q]

Yeah, I know how to do it. I would've have figured it out with your help, Grim Greyscale, even through it seems so obvious now. Thanks.

I'd except your offer, LoopyZebra, but I do not have Xbox live yet. I may soon get it.

Also, has anyone defeated Mr. Patch yet? The jerk's impossible to kill! Ad least it's not very easy, and I can't think of a way to build a vehicle that makes it easy! :smalleek:

[Jibar]

Well now I've played the demo...

Uuugghhh. I'm still not sure.

It looks like Banjo Kazooie. It has all the jokes and characters and feel of the worlds, but there's just so little platforming and while the vehicles are kinda fun they don't really seem like a good replacement.

[Forderz]

I played the actual game for about one hour, hated it, but then discovered Klungo's Arcade. That, my friends, is a platformer. THe actual game gets a 4.5 out of 10 on my personal scale. Nitpicky detail: You can't tip toe?

[LoopyZebra]

Mr. Patch is the big balloon dinosaur right? Just bring along a plane with a ton of egg guns, and aim for the patches themselves. Once you blow them all, you've won.

EDIT: This is assuming that you're talking about the Nutty Acres fight. The Mr. Patch in Banjoland requires ramming him into the big cactus thingy near the ice. I'd recommend a plane that has a lot of pushing power.

Sorry my advice hasn't been particularly quick; I've been busy the last couple of days.

[Green-Shirt Q]

Mr. Patch is the big balloon dinosaur right? Just bring along a plane with a ton of egg guns, and aim for the patches themselves. Once you blow them all, you've won.

EDIT: This is assuming that you're talking about the Nutty Acres fight. The Mr. Patch in Banjoland requires ramming him into the big cactus thingy near the ice. I'd recommend a plane that has a lot of pushing power.


Thanks, but I've already figured out both of those fights.

On another note, anybody think there could be a way to show the vehicles we've built here? I'd really like to show the cool vehicles I've built.

One of the vehicles I've built, to replace all of Kazooie's moves, I made a vehicle that looks like Kazooie was on Banjo's back and put parts on it to replace a lot of Kazooie's moves.

[LoopyZebra]

Well, aside from somehow taking pictures and getting them to the interwebs, you can send vehicles from one account to another. There's a link to it in Mumbo's Garage. Unfortunately though, you have to check your vehicle inbox in the Garage or you won't know if anything has been sent (no notification appears in game or on your XBL account). You can also send pics and video of the vehicles in action.

I don't think there's a way to share them with all of the world at large (ala Halo 3 or FarCry2's content systems), though, other than attaching them to a leaderboard entry.

I don't think any of my vehicles have been particularly cool though. My favorite is definitely "Unfortunate Son", a big, ugly cargo plane (formerly helicopter) with VTOL.

[RPGuru1331]

I don't have an X-Block 2, but how's the vehicle maker compare to Spore or MoO2?

[Green-Shirt Q]

I don't have an X-Block 2, but how's the vehicle maker compare to Spore or MoO2?

I think the vehicle maker is quite simple, easy and fun. I haven't played Spore or whatever MoO2 stands for, but I can say thet it's really simple to get what you want, as long as you have the parts to do it.

At the start of the game, it won't be that easy. You can make vehicles, but it is sharply limited to the parts you have. As soon as you get a great supply of parts I've found you can do just about any vehicle.

I've already made an Enterprise replica, a Serenity replica, I've already mentioned my Kazooie replacement for all of the old moves in the past games.

But, again, I've never played the other games you've mentioned, so I can't really help you that much there.

[LoopyZebra]

I never played MoO2, but I found Spore's vehicle creator to be useless and not that much fun (which is pretty much true for the last three portions of the game). Banjo Kazooie's is very fun. It essentially consists of attaching "blocks" together. "Blocks" have different sizes, shapes, attributes, abilities, and weights which require you to manage the placement of them on your vehicle. These blocks aren't necessarily block-like. There is ammo and fuel, requiring you to think about what engines and weapons you want to use given your fuel/ammo layout. I've had some trouble with particular replicas given the system and possible parts, but that's true for any creator.

[Sewer_Bandito]

Is there any reason why the typeface is in a 12 point font on my TV? I can't read what the hell is going on without sitting three feet from my TV. Also, why is it in widescreen? Can I fix any of this. Not being able to read the story is incredibly frsutrating.

[Green-Shirt Q]

Is there any reason why the typeface is in a 12 point font on my TV? I can't read what the hell is going on without sitting three feet from my TV. Also, why is it in widescreen? Can I fix any of this. Not being able to read the story is incredibly frsutrating.

Yeah, the small text size is a flaw in the game. I'm afraid that I never figured out if you could fix it or how.

As for wide-screen, I never noticed. It's full-screen for me.