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.
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Shit. I knew I forgot to do something last night.
Want this game. Need some kind of internet connection in my living room.
I'm still really torn on this game. I love the way it looks, the music is awesome but the vehicles seem out of place. It really sucks when you hit something while driving, you are taken completely off course.
I'm honestly really scared to try the demo. On one hand I don't want it to be bad because it's Banjo-Kazooie. On the other hand I want to to be bad so I don't have to spend the money. Gahhh choices!
I have to agree with Guagloves, sadly. I kept playing and playing, waiting to see if it was just me being horrible at driving, but they control just awful. I hate it, because I want to love the game so badly. I adore the updated style of Banjo and Kazooie, the world is beautiful, and the music in Banjo Land almost made me cry. But the huge dependence on vehicles makes me shy away, and I most likely will not be purchasing the game because of it. I hate to be that way, but I tried it and just couldn't get into it. Though I do really like the flying machines a whole lot..
On another note, I could not figure out the vehicle construction, but that was probably because the game text is so freaking small - not everyone has a huge television to play games on, Rare! I couldn't read a lick of the dialogue on my little tv.
I loved the vehicle creator also. I will probably get the game just to play around with it. I think my favorite part of the demo was wandering around Banjoland checking out all the old stuff from the previous two games.
Yeah, I felt about the same, King. The world and characters put a big smile on my face, but I'm still iffy on the gameplay. I'm still thinking about getting it, though. Maybe I should play the demo a bit more.
I haven't played it yet, but you guys in the comments are really scaring me.....
And bad driving controls? If there is one thing I have come to expect from a Rare game, it's solid and intuitive controls. I hope you guys are wrong.
tl;dr
drunkie
Nuts & Bolts is passable, but because the original B-K is in my top five favorite games of all time, I would've preferred more of the same over vehicles.
never played the original Banjo. I was thinking about picking this one up to get the free download of the original.
I just curious as to how the vehicle creation works, and if I will be way too spoiled by Littlebigplanet's creation tools by the time this comes out.
Don't get me wrong Grim, I would love than more of the same, but you gotta work with what you're given
I loved everything about the demo EXCEPT for 2 things. First and foremost thing was the TEXT. The text was TOO DAMN SMALL for my big 'ol SDTV. I had to really squint and struggle to read the dialogue and that just completely pissed me off. Why the HELL do all these PS3 and 360 games ONLY garner to the HD people?! Why isn't there a setting that makes things like READING easier for the (possibly MAJORITY of) people with only an SDTV? If they don't fix that before the game comes out, I will have such an incredibly difficult and frustrating time with the game that I might just skip it and buy the original on Live 2 weeks later (main motivation for getting this new game, btw).
The second thing was, as some other people mentioned, the driving. The vehicles control like shit, and it's disappointing. I REALLY wish they had stuck with a platformer focus instead of all this driving crap. It really irks me that they decided to do it. But hey, at least it's only $40, I suppose, and the style and feel of the series is still in tact...
I completely agree with you on the Text being too small Genki. I tried playing through it earlier today and I just couldn't because I didn't feel like straining my eyes to try and read it (I guess my contacts were dry, but they were almost popping out of my eyes >.<).
I'm not too impressed with this demo, to be blunt. I was hoping it would reassure me that this wasn't going to be what I thought it was. Maybe I'll play it again on someone's hdtv when I can actually read the damn text, but as of right now, I won't be buying this game.
as i rabid Bajo fanboy i actually gave it a chance. I was laughing at how bad the driving was but was crying on the inside because the game is basically based on this.
Ok, I just played it. So glad I didn't lay down the preorder.
Things I approved of... The music was there, fun and had me humming along.
In a drab 2 to 3 color current gaming world the graphics were colorful and delightful.
Even the demo worlds were large and plenty to see.
Things I didn't like...
Far too much focus on vehicles. All I wanted to do was get our of the car and run around the levels, but found they didn't really make the game for that, so it wasn't any fun to do.
The levels were large, but that was really only because they expected you to drive everywhere. Which was the last thing I wanted to do.
Which I didn't want to do, because the vehicles handled so poorly. Like people said, that will probably get better when you can build more detailed cars, but still, I felt like I was pushing around a washing machine on wheels.
At this point, the negatives outweigh the positives for me. Sadly... God I wanted this game to be good. All it did was make me want to play the originals.
I dunno, I really enjoyed the demo.. On my 15.1 widescreen LCD the text size was small, but readable.
Maybe I enjoyed it more than my g/f.. she had some of the same issue with driving (& reverse) some of you had. Also, I never played much of the original B&K's so I guess I don't know what I'm missing exactly.
I think it is cartoony & fun, and I want to see more.. I believe we will at least rent it, and consider a purchase if it was around $40.