One of the more infamous pieces of music from Nintendo's library of tunes is the DK Rap from Donkey Kong 64. That mad display of aural madness was crafted by Grant Kirkhope, who is basically the songwriter of our childhoods. Since he is com...   read

The golden days of Rareware may be gone, but their memories will forever live on. Soon, the spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie games, Yooka-Laylee, will be hitting digital storefronts. Announced today via Kickstarter and the official ...   read

Wait, Yooka-Laylee has multiplayer? Rextro the raptor has an arcade for you and three of your friends to visit and play together both co-operatively and competitively. If you don't have any friends that's OK, Rextro will be your friend as ...   read

A playable Yooka-Laylee demo will be available to some backers of its Kickstarter campaign. The spoiler-free demo offers a glimpse of the game’s sandbox, platform design to those who have donated at least £20 towards the £...   read

Rare is still making videos recounting what it was like behind the scenes on Banjo-Kazooie, and I'm still fascinated. Today, it's five (more) things we probably didn't know. As discussed in the video, the game's musical intro was originall...   read

With the archival nature of Rare Replay -- a collection of games on Xbox One that spans the developer's entire history -- it's natural that the studio would be digging through a lot of old boxes lately. One of those boxes (proverbial ...   read

Pretty fun new Hey Ash, Watcha Playin' this week with a Banjoe-Kazooie twist. And way more nudity and animalistic sexuality and bloody eggholes. Plus funny voices! I want a gritty, AAA release, like a Witcher 3 or whatever, that uses no vo...   read

I'm way behind on watching those documentary shorts included in Rare Replay and I might never catch up unless I set aside time to see them on YouTube. Rare uploaded this video today detailing how it arrived at Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolt...   read

It doesn't have Donkey Kong Country or GoldenEye, but Rare Replay does offer a neat challenge for Battletoads fans: how long can you stay alive on the infamous speeder bike sequence? During a hands-on session with the 30-game bund...   read

If any game would be described as a "uniquely RARE game" and a "career highlight" it would be Banjo-Threeie, which may very well be getting announced at E3 next week. The URL banjothreeie.com used to redirect to the Rare website, but not an...   read

Yooka. Laylee. Yooka-Laylee. Yep, they've still got it! We've talked about Project Ukulele a few times now, but, quickly: it's a vibrant 3D platformer in development at Playtonic, a fresh new studio founded by former Rare developers. Compos...   read

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer likes to talk about games. However, that doesn't mean that he restricts himself to only talking about titles that his company's working on. No, he'll discuss anything, even Nintendo properties. When a fan asked on ...   read

Last week we took a break from the usual poetic news recaps to highlight our favorite games from PAX East, but now we are back in the swing of things. You can check out all of the past episodes on the Game News Haikus YouTube playlist. In ...   read

Are you ready to have a sad? The SXSW Gaming Awards had Banjo and Kazooie on screen being flown through the air via audience participation with the use of motion controls. No new game has been announced from Rare just yet, though the s...   read

Today at EGX Rezzed, Playtonic showcased the first in-engine screenshots of Project Ukulele. Speaking at the event, the seven-man team of former Rare veterans said they were blown away by the fan response to their recently announced spiritu...   read

I need to take some deep breaths here. Former Rare developers are creating a spiritual successor to "those fondly remembered platforming adventures we built in the past," and they've brought on Grant Kirkhope, David Wise, and Steve Burke t...   read

We've been let down before, but I'm unable to contain my enthusiasm for Playtonic Games' Project Ukulele, a new platforming adventure from the people we want making this type of game. Formed by six former Rare staffers, the studio includes ...   read

Before 4J Studios became involved with the console versions of Minecraft, it ported Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie to Xbox Live Arcade -- rather well, I might add. If you haven't yet played them on Xbox 360, they're worth a revisit, and you ...   read

Too good to be true, I worried, when first hearing about a spiritual successor to the Banjo-Kazooie series that was to be made by former Rare staffers. "Mingy Jongo." Perhaps that name still rests in your memory. I had forgotten the project...   read

Ready to celebrate 15 years of the Bear and Bird? Blake Robinson's Banjo-Kazooie Symphony is ready for your Jiggies! We previewed select tracks from the album a few weeks back, and now the 30-song, 72-minute release is available on Loudr a...   read

Abridged soundtracks to Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie were recently released online for free, and Banjo composer Grant Kirkhope has been popping his head seemingly everywhere. Is it just me, or is the classic Rare platforming series undergo...   read

The Bear meets The Mouse! Errr... sorta. Okay, not really. But wouldn't that be something? The Castle of Illusion HD remake will now be even more spectacular thanks to the knowledge that former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope is on music duty....   read

In case you missed it, composer Grant Kirkhope recently tossed the soundtrack to Banjo-Kazooie up on Bandcamp with the pleasant option to pay what you want for the tunes. The decision did not end in painful regret, it would seem; he's ...   read

After Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope's recent appearance on Game Grumps, I've had the game on my mind and wanted to run through the Xbox Live Arcade re-release for old times' sake. Seemingly out of the blue, he has kin...   read

I was away on a self-imposed hiatus this past week, thus I missed out on sharing this recently released Game Grumps guest starring Grant Kirkhope, composer for Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the upcoming Yaib...   read