Banjo-Tooie

If you haven't heard of this game by now, then where have you been for the past year? The show gave us an invaluable opportunity to see just how this game is shaping up and it's looking great! Especially, the sections where Banjo and Kazooie split up.

The moves remain the same as in the first game when they're together but apart it's a whole different ball game! Banjo without Kazooie can use his now empty backpack as a weapon or as an air storage device for underwater exploration! Kazooie without Banjo on the other hand becomes an aerial master who could put the Red Arrows to shame!

There's no word yet on how this game will interact with the original Banjo Kazooie but the word on the show floor was that it is likely to involve 'hot swapping' the carts! This would involve taking one cart out and replacing it with another mid-game! Banjo Tooie is due out over here in October.

First Impressions

More of the same - nuff said! We don't know what you were all expecting from Banjo-Tooie, but it really is just a remixed version of the original Banjo-Tooie game. This was really to be expected though - especially as the new game is supposed to interact with the original title.

The similarity isn't a bad thing though - because you've got loads of new puzzles to sort out and terrain to explore. This is a 'must have' game!

The Godfather Part 2 of videogames (ie: similar to but better than the original!) If someone was to ask you to list the top ten best games on the N64, then we reckon that at least four of them would be Rare titles. That is not such a ridiculous boast when you really sit down to think about it. Rare has given us GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie and – more recently – Conker's Bad Fur Day. Still, if you wait a little while longer until you've played Banjo-Tooie, then we're pretty sure that a fifth Rare title will crop up on that top ten list. "But it's a sequel!" you cry, "and by its very definition will be inferior to its predecessor, and to compensate, it will just reuse all of the same ideas and make the challenges bigger and harder!" To a certain extent that is true, but is it such a bad thing? Many of the most popular sequels of all time have succeeded because the ante was upped quite considerably. Examples of this would be (in movie terms) The Empire Strikes Back, Aliens and Toy Story 2, which all took the elements that were successful and familiar and built upon them. Banjo-Tooie succeeds because it does exactly that. It takes all of the components that made Banjo-Kazooie so popular and raises the stakes to make for a remarkable, enjoyable and absolutely gob-smacking challenge!

Bear Naked Ladies

So what's going on then? Well, for a start, Gruntilda's back from the dead and sucking the life force out of the living to reanimate her rotting quite tiresome. This is even more of a problem when you consider just how big the game is. Banjo-Tooie is absolutely massive and some levels are so huge that finding a place to start is a challenge in itself.

Ultimately, what Rare has created is a challenge worthy of a videogames master. There is absolutely no way on earth you'll get through this game in just a few short hours of intensive play. There is just so much to see and do that, despite the insufferably cutesy look to the whole thing, even the most seasoned gamers will be probably be very hard-pushed to finish it without screaming a profanity or two!

Bird Brain

The difficulty level of the game changes in accordance with the moves you pick up, and as a result, the challenge steadily increases. The first few stages are simple enough to complete, but this all serves as a precursor to the action which is to follow. Once you have picked up more tricks and talents, the game changes so that these abilities are not wasted. Using every trick in the book is the only way to get that last elusive Jinjo or to reach that seemingly impossible ledge. It's great to play a platform game that gives you lots to think about as well as offering tons of action to get your fingers around.

But it's not just the usual running and jumping antics that make up the gameplay in this title, no sir, because at several points in the game everything goes a bit first-person and thus moves the gameplay into a whole new dimension.

These Doom-style sections are a nice change from the platform areas and keep the game fresh. If you know the genre, you'll know what to expect. If not, then expect to wander around a whole host of maze-like corridors with tons of baddies waiting to leap out on you at every turn! Another aspect of the gameplay which keeps the interest level up, once again, relates back to the varied moves you have learned. The fact that in this game, unlike the first, Banjo and Kazooie can actually split up to perform tasks on their own, ensures that there are plenty of different and unusual puzzles ahead.

In fact, variety is the spice of Banjo-Tooie and it's why, no matter how frustrating the game gets, you'll still want to stick with it. There are so many fun and interesting styles, environments and challenges available that you'll find it very hard to put the control pad down even for a second. It really is that addictive.

Bear Bait

As we've come to expect by now, the graphics are up to the usual high standard that Rare always seems to so effortlessly deliver. Besides the frame rate dropping ever so slightly whenever the screen becomes busy, there is very little else to fault here. The animation of all the characters, especially Banjo and Kazooie, is a lot better than before. Everything is very smooth and extremely detailed. This detail is so specific that even the shadows cast by the characters match their appearance and are not just some dark round spot on the floor (an element that was also improved upon in Conker's Bad Fur Day). Once again, the environments are awash with all kinds of pretty colours and the textures for each area are just as attractive.

Controls-wise, the game is wonderful. No, it's better than that, it's near perfect. Banjo (and Kazooie for that matter) handles brilliantly, and is responsive and easy to control with the trusty Nintendo pad.

Considering the huge amount of moves you have to remember, each one remarkably becomes second nature to pull off when the need arises. So there are no problems on that front!

The only thing that spoils this game is the sometimes awkward camera which, when you least need it to be, will somehow get trapped behind an object or spin around to a strange angle. This very rarely happens, but when it does occur, it really gets in the way of what you are trying to do!

A Bird In The Hand...

Because so much care and attention has been put into Banjo-Tooie, the result is a title with outstanding graphics and gameplay. Obviously sound is an important factor and one which plays an important part in the game. If you are lucky enough to play this game in surround sound, then each cry from a Jinjo or musical cue which points you in the necessary direction can be heard perfectly. Another great part of Banjo-Tooie is the comedy and humour that appears throughout the game. From the witty captions that appear under each boss stage through to the rather mean and cutting comments Kazooie makes to nearly every character she meets, there is always something to make you smile.

This Is The Age Of The Train!

Certain areas of Banjo-Tooie are linked by a rail system. 'Chuffy the Train' rides these rails and can transport you to and from these different worlds. In some cases Chuffy becomes an important tool. One example of this would be when you have to heal a sick dinosaur. This dino must be carried to the train and then sent along to Mumbo in a different area who is able to heal it. Luckily this train doesn't run late or have an aisle full of screaming kids to contend with!

[Above] Who in their right mind would choose that decor? Stevie Wonder?

Bear-illiant!

Although this is still a relatively new title, certain aspects of the game do seem a little bit dated. Obviously there is nothing really new or revolutionary on show here but what there is still proves to the world why Rare is the leader in this, and many other, genres. This game is only surpassed by another one of Rare's own titles... yes, you've guessed it: Conker's Bad Fur Day. Whilst CBFD looks and sounds better, we suggest it's more of a gung-ho, all action, hell-for-leather battle-fest, whereas Banjo-Tooie is more for those who like their games served with a little more brain food and puzzle solving. Another rather more obvious difference is that CBFD also has an absolute shed-load of swearing in it, something Banjo doesn't need. Both titles are equally amazing games, but each has their own specific audience to appeal to, and if you loved the first Banjo outing, then Banjo-Tooie should be high on your most wanted list!

Banjo-Tooie has just about everything in it that a great game should have and very little one shouldn't. This title comes highly recommended and shows that the N64 has come a long way from its Super Mario 64 roots. The only question it begs now is: where does Rare go from here? The answer? Bring on the GameCube!

Banjo-Tooie is an absolutely massive and extremely impressive title that any true fan of tough challenges and action-packed gameplay should definitely own! Admittedly, towards the end the game becomes a little bit too tough but the addictive, compulsive gameplay ensures that despite what you may end up screaming at the screen, you will more than likely come crawling back to give it just one more try.

Just when you thought that 3D platform games couldn't get any better... It's been two long years since the bear 'n' bird duo finally defeated the super-vain witch Gruntilda, and since her vanquishing, things have pretty much returned to normality for Banjo and his group of strange friends. That, however, is all about to change!

One dark and stormy night (for this sort of thing always happens on a dark and stormy night – it's an old law, or a tradition, or something) Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo and Bottles – the mole who trained our heroic pair in the first game – are all minding their own business, having a quiet game of cards round at Banjo's house. Suddenly, the house starts to shake, and when Mumbo goes outside to investigate he sees two new witches, Mingella and Blobbelda, magically raising the boulder which covers the late Grunty's resting place! Quick as a flash, the old – supposedly dead – witch is out of her grave and flinging spells around with wild abandon. Before you can say 'run away!' Banjo's house is reduced to a smoking pile of rubble (or what an estate agent might call 'an ideal fixer-upper') and the witches are gone in Mingella and Blobbelda's strange tunnelling machine that looks suspiciously like the Mole from Thunderbirds (Gerry Anderson's lawyers, please take note!)

Once the dust has cleared, Banjo, Kazooie and Mumbo emerge from cover – having left the house just before the magic spell hit. Bottles however, wasn't quite so fast and as the furry friends watch in horror, he proceeds to stagger from the wreckage of the house and snuff it! As Bottles' spirit leaves his body, Banjo looks at Kazooie, Kazooie looks at Banjo, they both look at Mumbo Jumbo, and Banjo mutters in a menacing tone, "that bitch is gonna...

Everybody Split!

As you'll probably know by now, one of the biggest differences to this game over the first one is the ability to split up Banjo and Kazooie. This is one of the moves you learn early on, and it is achieved via the split pads that you can see here. Once separated, Banjo and Kazooie (seen here in fire-breathing dragon form – did we mention that she can turn into one of those?) can go their own way and accomplish tasks which they couldn't do together.

Pros

• Far, far bigger than the first game

• Loads of new moves/transformations for Banjo and Kazooie

• Characters can split up

• Much better puzzles than the first game

• Marvellous music

• Loads of cool multiplayer modes

• It's got Banjo-Kazooie Doom!

• Oodles of secrets

• Incredibly humorous in-game dialogue

• Improved camera

Cons

• Frame-rate can drop a little in places

• Because it's so big, you can get lost

• If you didn't like the first one... you probably won't like this!

Bear-zarre!

Well, okay, so Banjo doesn't use those exact words, and he's not actually carrying a machinegun when he sets out – but the gist of what he does is pretty much the same (have you lot never heard of dramatic licence?) Of course, the point of this game isn't just revenge, oh no.

You see Grunty has a problem. During the two years that she's spent entombed in the ground on the 'worm and fungus' diet, she's lost rather a lot of weight – in fact she's now little more than a skeleton, albeit a rather rotund one. And she's more than a little peeved at this (ironic really, since her aim in the first game was to slim down, wasn't it?) Luckily for her, and unluckily for pretty much everyone else, Grunty's sisters Mingella and Blobbelda (the two mystery witches) just so happen to have a rather special machine locked up in their hideaway. This machine – looking rather like a huge old-fashioned sci-fi ray gun, much like you might expect Ming the Merciless to threaten Flash Gordon with – can apparently suck the life-force from any creature, and even from the very ground itself. Once enough life-force has been collected, the machine can then be used to give Grunty her body back, warts and all! So, as if revenge for the offing of Bottles wasn't motive enough, Banjo and Kazooie are now racing against the clock to prevent the land they know and love from being turned into a cold and lifeless wasteland, unfit for intelligent life: a place, in fact, even worse than Milton Keynes!

Bear-illiant!

So that's the plot... what about the game? Well the first thing that you'll notice about Banjo-Tooie is that it looks very much like Banjo-Kazooie. Strange that. The game is obviously created on the same (or a very similar) engine, and as such the graphics are more or less identical and the game plays very much like the first one. However, as we commented in our review of Zelda: Majora's Mask, this is perfectly acceptable, because the first game was so gosh-darned gorgeous that you'd be hard pushed to make many – if any – major improvements to it. Don't get us wrong, there have been enhancements made since Banjo's first outing – the camera is a lot less annoying than it was in the first game for one thing. Plus, as you play through, you notice lots of little graphical details that have been polished up – the water effects for one, are rather groovy.

Basically what Rare has done is take the original game and – rather than mucking about with the elements that already work – simply improved it. So... if you're expecting a fantastically evolved game, you're going to be disappointed. But what you are getting is pretty damn superb, so you're best off just shutting up and exploring the multitude of delights that this game has to offer... which is a quite a few, by the way.

Great Bears Of Fire!

Now then... are you one of those people who thought Banjo-Kazooie was great, but considered it maybe a little too easy to finish? Then this news should make you happy: Banjo-Tooie is huge. It's a mammoth mutha of a game, lavishly filled with more puzzles and mini-games than you can shake a broiled Breegull at.

It doesn't actually seem that way at first though. When you initially start the game, you begin in the area by Banjo's former house. From here you move on to the Isle O' Hags, which serves as the hubworld, and at first glance doesn't appear to be especially spacious. Even the first proper world, Mayahem Temple, is actually fairly compact and won't take you all that long to explore. However, these initial stages of the game are very deceptive. Rare has planned the game extremely well, so that the first couple of levels – while not small by any means – are nevertheless of a fairly manageable size and the puzzles aren't too taxing (well, most of them, anyway). Reach Glitter Gulch Mine, however, and you start to realise just how big this game really is – and that particular world isn't the biggest, not by a long shot!

Banjo-Doom!

Rare have excelled themselves with some of the sub-games in Banjo-Tooie. One that seems almost too good to be true is a variation on Doom (which bears more than a passing resemblance to GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark too) where the view switches to first-person and Banjo uses Kazooie as a gun! This mode is also one of the many multiplayer games on offer, and it's absolutely superb fun!

Bird In The Hand

As in Banjo-Kazooie, each of the levels in the game has a multitude of characters, puzzles and secrets, and also like the first game, you can't initially complete all the puzzles and uncover all the secrets when you first enter a world. This isn't because the puzzles are necessarily too difficult – the trick is that many of the objectives in a level require you to have acquired a skill or an item from a later level before you can tackle them. The idea, of course, being that as you gain these new skills or objects on the later levels you then have to go back and complete tasks that you have left undone on the earlier ones.

Now, this could be extremely annoying. In general, games that require you to retrace your steps a great deal usually end up being tedious, drawn-out affairs where much of your playing time is wasted trekking from place to place and back again. Turok 2: Seed of Evil is a perfect example of this, and the general consensus in the office is that even Donkey Kong 64 suffered from this problem to a vaguely irritating degree.

This game is a-friggin'-mazing!

In Banjo-Tooie however, the backtracking isn't a problem. The levels – while large – are not, as a rule, too labyrinthine (well, most of them, anyway) and the layout of each of them is nicely structured, with well-placed shortcuts in the form of portals that zip you wherever.

What's the deal?

If every company had the record for hit games that Rare does, it would truly be a gamer's paradise. At least N64 owners will benefit from it at a time when third-party support is slim. Rare's big offering for the holidays this year--barring any unforeseen delays--is the much-anticipated sequel to Banjo-Kazooie. This bear (Banjo) and bird (Kazooie) team have nine new worlds to explore (150 total areas), new moves, multiplayer games for up to four players, and a lot of other surprises. Instead of being attached to each other at the hip like in the first game, they can split up and take on areas alone. Ever since Rare said that Tooie would somehow interact with and unlock levels within the original, we speculated on how that'd be done--it's not expected to be through a "lock-on" cartridge. Even today, Rare still won't say how they're going to do it--and probably won't until the game is released.

So why is it a must-get game?

It's a 3D platform game from Rare--what more do you need?

Rare hinted at the existence of Banjo-Tooie in the ending of the first game. And two years later, we're almost at its Aug. 28 release. Banjo and his bird friend Kazooie are back to battle the newly exhumed Gruntilda. Rare's made lots of improvements to the engine in order to fix the camera problems some players complained about in the first game. You start with all the moves Banjo learned in the first adventure. Now Banjo and Kazooie can separate and take on areas specifically designed for them through special "swap" floor pads (Kazooie even has a few first-person shooter missions to take on). And--as fans requested, Mumbo Jumbo is now a playable character. Banjo can transform into more than just animals, too--like a submarine or a washing machine (but anything you turn into will still sport his trademark backpack). There are over 10 multiplayer games for up to four people to challenge. Still undetermined is exactly how the game will exchange data with the first Banjo-Kazooie. But we'll keep you posted!