I am a rabid Banjo Kazooie fan, as most of you know, and therefore I was really excited to get my hands on the Nuts and Bolts demo last night. I've been waiting so long to play a new BK game, and I'm really interested in how they've changed the gameplay.

My biggest fear was that the humor and style of the original Banjo Kazooie games would be gone, but thankfully this isn't the case. The game starts up and you hear that familiar song, and it's freakin awesome. The game still has text speech with mumbling noises coming from the characters, and Grunty still talks in rhyme. If you're a fan of the original games, that first time you enter Banjo Land and hear that music kick in... it put a huge grin on my face. Rare has really pumped up the nostalgia factor for fans of the series.

Now the gameplay... I'm still not completely sold on it. I know that you're playing the beginning of the game, and as such you have all the crappy parts, but the vehicle driving felt a little loose. It may have just been the way the car was designed, but the turning was just a little sloppy, especially if you are driving in reverse. However, I did start to get the hang of it. It was kind of weird to build an amphibious vehicle and have it turn sloppy on ground but be very perecise in water. I hope that Rare tightens up the handling on vehicles before release.



So I may not be huge on the driving, but let me tell you, the vehicle creation is freaking awesome. I spent at least an hour just building the strangest vehicles I could and then testing them out. The best part is that I only had some basic parts. I can't wait to see what kind of crazy shit I can build once I have earned all the parts in the game. The vehicle builder is really solid and allows you to just go nuts and build whatever you want. I also like that they added a laid back physics model to the vehicle. For instance, if you build a land vehicle that's top heavy, good luck making sharp turns.

Basically, I'm just as excited for this game as I was before. It may be my penchant for all things Banjo Kazooie, but I had a great time playing the demo, and I'm sure I'll sink many hours into the full game.