Review : Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
With 8 years of anticipation behind them, Banjo fans got a real surprise this year when Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts hit the shelves with a few… modifications.
The premise of the game is simple, in a good way, with an “Okay, we know you don’t care about the story, so we’re not going to waste time giving Banjo a motive for collecting jigsaw pieces” approach. The duo have gotten a bit lazy over the years, but they’re soon whipped back into shape, as if by magic, by L.O.G. (the Lord of Games) so they are fit for a new adventure. You are dropped into a universe created by L.O.G. with the aim of defeating Grunty for the rights to Spiral Mountain.
Yup, you’re still collecting shiny things, but in a thoroughly British manner
Naturally this involves collecting a bunch of shiny jigsaw pieces to open doors. One might be forgiven for remembering the bear and bird’s first two adventures as being platform heavy jumpathons. These Nintendo 64 outings were in fact, as opposed to the precision of Mario or Crash Bandicoot games, closer to fitting the “explore and collect” descriptor. If you still consider that to be platforming, Nuts & Bolts has it. A lot of it. If you’re not a fan of collecting things, you wont get as much out of this game as some people will. But this is like saying that if you’re not a fan of playing online, you wont get the same experience out of Halo 3 as some people. There’s still an experience there to be enjoyed, and it’s very well executed. One aspect of the game that takes advantage of it being based on old concepts, is that Rare frequently laugh at themselves and games in general, by making lots of jokes about their previous games, and things like Xbox 360’s breaking. There’s also some jokes about nuts, but don’t worry, the British are born with wit and humour so it makes for a jolly good chuckle.
Secret option number 3
There’s about 100 challenges in the game, and there’s a lot of variety there. You might find yourself doing a lot of racing, for example, but each race has nuances that require a slightly different approach from a vehicle building perspective. This variety, and actually the real value of the game, comes directly from how much time you will invest in modifying and creating vehicular solutions to the challenges. This is where the heart of the game lies, and where the game really shines with innovation and enjoyment. One particular challenge requires you to defend an egg statue from an onslaught of flying robots with guns. You have several options here, you can fly around the sky shooting them down with your egg guns, or you can hop on your fortified grenade turret and shoot them out the sky. However, there is secret option number 3. You can build a big cage of squares and poles, and drop it over the statue so that the enemies cant shoot it. The timer runs out, the statue is intact. Mission accomplished.
Well built
If this kind of approach to a mission appeals to you, it is present throughout the entire game and there are many opportunities to let that creative genius loose in the vehicle builder. Being so integral to the experience, it is reassuring that Rare implemented the vehicle builder very well, balancing simplicity and depth remarkably well. You have a lot of parts at your disposal, and an intuitive grid based building system where parts either connect or they don’t. A simple widely used example would be the racer that goes anywhere, essentially a flying car that also floats. It’s easy to make, just a car with wings and propellers stuck on the sides, it will fly, float and drive along the ground. But there is added depth that you’d be expecting to find in Gran Turismo, the vehicle parts all have specific weight and aerodynamic properties. So if you’re going to make an efficient racer, you can refine it with things that affect weight distribution and airflow to get faster times.
This game has a surprising amount of depth, but equally surprising is how you can totally avoid it and still have a lot of fun. If you don’t want to build a vehicle, take a Mumbo-built chassis and throw some wheels and an engine on it. If you don’t even want to do that, just use default designs and buy new ones with the notes you’ve inadvertently collected. This will still win you the Jiggy for each challenge, but if you want to go the extra mile, trophies will require some more creative approaches.
The bit where I talk about graphics and sound
The worlds are beautifully designed and rendered, though this might be partly due to this visual style being all but abandoned for the last 10 years that I feel it looks so refreshing and stunning, but the game overall has remarkable attention to detail and graphical fidelity. The music is almost as impressive. While there are few memorable tunes like Freezeazy Peak was in the first game, all the music is well composed and recorded, in keeping with the uplifting tone of the game. No, there isn’t voice acting this time either, but if it bothers you that much just read it out loud in your most annoying “dur-hugh!” voice.
I’m back, with WINGS!
If you struggle with a challenge, you can skip it and do a different one. The game is so open ended that you wont know where to start some times. Partly due to this, you will find at the end of the game that you still have an awful lot left to do. As the game progresses you get better and better vehicle parts to use, so once you’ve completed the game you can go back and do the leftover missions and improve your scores and times from previous missions… if that’s your kind of thing. So if you couldn’t quite do that race with just a medium engine, go back with two large engines and tear it up. This makes for a lot of replay value for the game, and there is more added value in online functionality. You are able to do challenges against other people online to determine who has the best designs, and generally have a bit of a laugh when someone uses the Starship Enterprise for a race. Each single player challenge is tracked on leader boards, and the top 10 for each will be able to publish replays and vehicle blueprints, so if you’re determined to get those high scores you can easily learn/steal from the best. You can also take photos in the game and upload them to the official Banjo website to share with neoGAF and show off the Millennium Falcon that you made. You can also use them to include in a review of the game.
Skipped to the end? Read this bit
Ultimately how much you will enjoy Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts depends on the effort you want to put into solving the challenges put in front of you using the contraptions you can make and put wheels on and call a vehicle. If that’s not much to your liking, there’s still some old skool fun to have in just exploring the dazzling world around you and having a relaxed gaming experience. I can’t quite bring myself to recommend that anyone skip this game because it’s so astonishingly well crafted and does such a brilliant job of everything that it set out to do, and there is fun to be had from this game whatever you want from it. If you like collecting things in a satirical late 90’s fashion or have a creative flair and some bright ideas, get this game for christmas. If neither of these appeal to you, there’s plenty of time between now and when the next decent platformer is released in 2010 for you to pick it up for £20.
A-
An enjoyable, refined experience that’s not for everyone.