Leaked first Banjo and Kazooie 3 screenshots

[DrunknMunky Veteran]

Well in the mean time..

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts Q&A

13-May-2008 Exclusive: Rare takes Banjo in a new direction

Banjo-Kazooie 3 is up there with Gears of War 2 as far as 360's monster games of 2008 go for us. We've seen a bit about Gears 2 already, and now Rare's finally lifted the cauldron lid on Banjo's third adventure.

To get an idea on what we can expect, and how the chance in direction came about, we scored a very exclusive interview with Rare's head of design, Gregg Mayles, who was on the team of the very first Banjo game all those years ago.

CVG: So Banjo's been out of the limelight for a while now. What's he been up to?

Gregg Mayles: He's been slobbing out. As you'll see in the storyline, Banjo's no longer his slim, fit self and he's been in retirement and gone to seed. He's in retirement, Grunty is just a head so you think these two are never going to star in another game ever. But we'll bring them back to life and, as you see, Grunty gets a mechanical body, Banjo will be reformed to his formal self and off they go again on another adventure.

CVG: Last time you made a Banjo game you were under Nintendo's wing. Now you're in bed with Microsoft. What's the difference?

Mayles: In terms of our thinking behind the Banjo game, zero. We consciously have made no decisions because it's for a different company. Obviously we've got the use of multiplayer this time, which - although in Banjo-Tooie we did explore it to a certain degree, we certainly couldn't do half the stuff we've got planned for multiplayer this time.

I guess that's really the only difference. Everything is much the same. The humour's the same, the characters are the same, the feel of the game.

CVG: What's been the reaction to the game outside of Rare so far?

Mayles: People have grasped it a lot quicker than we thought. We thought there might be some kind of, 'This isn't Banjo any more, what's going on?' But this hasn't proved to be the case. People can see what we've done and how we're trying to approach the platform genre in a slightly different way.

The traditional Banjo game was like, 'here's a character, we'll give you some moves but they're fixed abilities, and you use those fixed abilities to try and discover the solution to a designed problem.'

[in the new game] we're giving you a load of abilities, and you're able to combine those abilities however you feel will solve the problem. So rather than it being a case of trying to find the designer's way of doing it, maybe you can find your own way of doing it. I guess that, in a nutshell, is really what the game is, just having the freedom of trying to find your own way of doing things rather than what we tell you.

Continues..

Hands on from Wired

[spenser.d]

Heh.

CVG: How do you think the Banjo hardcore will react to the changes?

Mayles: I think the generation of players that have played Banjo before are probably going to be shocked to start with. They're probably going to look at it and say, 'Hang on a sec, this isn't the Banjo I was expecting. What have you done? You've ruined it!'

I had that reaction when I first saw the emphasis on vehicles, but I'm now looking at it with an open mind, and it does look like it'll be a great game.

-Spenser

[+Mystic MVC]

My faith has be re-assured with a little help from this clip.

Does anybody else remember those familiar sounds/music? :D

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

My faith has be re-assured with a little help from this clip.

Does anybody else remember those familiar sounds/music? :D

OMG! OMG! OMG! OMG! :bounce:

[Dc'1]

I wonder if it will be as good as the old Banjo Kazooie games lol.

[Guest]

Banjo tooie was a bit annoying tbh but I enjoyed the first one. These days I find collecting little things like the notes and stuff really quite tedious. Plus, I don't have a 360 so I'll be having to give this a miss unfortunately.

[Argi]

I can't help but feel extremely disappointed with what was shown today. The most obvious thing is the vehicles. Where the **** do vehicles fit in? I just wanted simple platformer in similar style to the original games. I'm one of those people who get really bored in large worlds really quickly. While the idea of having a massive landscape to explore sounds great, I much prefer a simpler but not necessarily linear style of gameplay - smaller levels, clear goals.

Given that Banjo was one of the major reasons why I chose 360 over a PS3 back in January I can't help but feel slapped in the face.

[AlphaPrime]

Banjo 3 was my most anticipated game this year, now I don't think I'll even buy it. Still might be a good game, just nothing at all like what I was looking for. I agree with chAos972 here.

I do think that people that liked Viva Pinata would like this, I was not one of them however. Loved Kameo though.

[+Warwagon MVC]

The people bitching about the graphics.

compared to that I Think they look damn good.

[+Mystic MVC]

The people bitching about the graphics.

compared to that I Think they look damn good.

Oh no you didn't warwagon! :D

That is the SNES game (one of my favorites) that I always forget the name. Please tell!

Edit: Joe and Mac? (Looked closer into the picture). :p

[Doli]

Oh no you didn't warwagon! :D

That is the SNES game (one of my favorites) that I always forget the name. Please tell!

Edit: Joe and Mac? (Looked closer into the picture). :p

Great game (Y)

[red.]

The hands-on impression on Kotaku sounds like it's now different to the old Banjo Kazooie gameplay and now made it more about vehicles. As a fan of the original, i don't really like the idea.

[Lingwo]

I can't believe they're pushing the build your own vehicles feature. They've removed Banjos moves and replaced them with the ability to build vehicles. Nintendo changed the Mario formula slightly and it worked really well because at the end of the day it was still a platformer. Rare have changed the Banjo formula that it doesn't look like a platformer anymore. Not looking forward to it at all now.

[+Mystic MVC]

The hands-on impression on Kotaku sounds like it's now different to the old Banjo Kazooie gameplay and now made it more about vehicles. As a fan of the original, i don't really like the idea.

I read that this morning as well and this quote sums up my disappointment;

Early impressions leave a lot to be desired and more than one person who saw the game asked the developers on hand if these single player challenges and vehicle creation was all there was to the game.

The reply: "Creating vehicles to complete the challenges is the crux of the game." Kotaku

[Smashing Pumpkin]

Sad face.

[spenser.d]

You guys should be more open minded. I was a little sad at first, but then I thought about it a bit and I'll give it a good shot. Rare made the other choice with Banjo-Tooie (to just recreate Banjo-Kazooie with new levels and better looks) and I didn't think it was as fun as the original, so I guess a third of the same probably wouldn't have done anything for me.

X3F Impressions - Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts

Alright fanboys, time to get the difficult news out of the way first. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is not much like its predecessors at all. The main gameplay focus is still on platforming, only it's now platforming with vehicles too. Like most platformers, the specific objectives you have to complete are slightly varied, but are mostly different takes on collecting items.

To do so, you'll have a massive tool kit at your fingertips. The vehicles seen in the gallery can all be broken down into various pieces, and a large portion of the gameplay stems from mixing and matching vehicle parts to suit the task at hand. Or y'know, to just suit messing around with infinitely customizable vehicles in a physics playground. That playground can be taken online as well, and the game's multiplayer is very physics-focused and custom-content heavy.

The more traditional platforming elements of the series' history come to the surface in the game's overworld, Showdown town, and there the player will use more jumping and on-foot platforming than in the other levels. The half dozen levels are really big, incredibly colorful and creative, and seem to be designed to offer as much variety as the theme allows.

To traverse the levels, you'll use custom created vehicles, assembled in the game's garage, or reconfigured "in the field." The vehicle creation mechanic utilizes a 3D area of invisible cubic spaces, and a standard building block is the size of a single cube. This single cube then becomes the standard unit of measurement and movement for the assembly of the vehicle. While there are many pieces that do not conform to the shape of the unit cube, when they move their "attachment axis" does so along the invisible grid.

The system definitely doesn't over-complicate things, and with a few mandatory pieces (power, propulsion, seat, etc) that don't even need to be in contact, you'll be on your way. The garage has a limit on the specific amount of each type of part that can be used, which serves to provide a modicum of balance. From what we saw, the types of pieces, freedom to combine them, and ability for the changes to be visible immediately in both a gameplay and graphical sense could lead to endless emergent gameplay.

While many will decry the change, we could see ourselves spending many hours creating vehicles and experimenting with how they effect the world and vice versa. In a memorable moment, we walked up behind a fellow attendee who appeared to be piloting some sort of submarine (as the vehicle was underwater) when suddenly he pulled up and the thing pointed to the clouds and took off into the sky. It was really impressive until he ran out of fuel and hit the ground, where the vehicle exploded into all of its component pieces.

The beauty of the game is that if one was dedicated enough they could retrieve all the pieces and rebuild the vehicle without ever entering the garage. The garage of course facilitates all the new additions to the vehicle, so any in-world editing is limited to the pieces already in-world. But there will be items to be found only in-world as well, and the in-world items can end up playing a crucial role in the multiplayer.

The Rare folks were only showcasing a single multiplayer gametype that they were calling Sumo, which is essentially a variant of King of the Hill. Using custom vehicles, four players play bumper cars within a specific area, trying to force everyone else out. Oh, and did we mention that the building pieces include weapons of all sorts, creating even more gameplay options. While an objective-based mode was what was shown, it will likely be the simple physics based interactions of free-form play that will be the most appealing to people.

Unfortunately, much of the game is still under wraps or unfinished, and the full extent of the feature set is still to be determined. After creating a particularly fun plane, we inquired about the possibility of sharing our creation with others online and a wry smile crossed the PR woman's face and she said, "We can't talk about that." So take that for what you will.

All in all there is a good reason that Rare did not decide to title the game Banjo Threeie. It's something new. Sure you could argue that Banjo and Kazooie are both superfluous now, but their design and history flavor the world and story. Besides there still is traditional platforming in the game. But in a similar fashion to the platforming genre at large, the more traditional stuff is hidden inside the larger gameplay genres that have been created. Whether Rare should have made Banjo Threeie isn't important. They made Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, and its going new places and trying new things.

Source - X360F

-Spenser

[Windam]

ROFL!

Mumbo's Nuts :laugh:

Had such a blast w/ this game on the N64

[azz0r_wugg]

Consider me disappointed.

Another screw up from Rare.

Sad indeed :(

[Vandalsquad]

Consider me disappointed.

Another screw up from Rare.

Sad indeed :(

Alot of games sound bad in theory but rock when played. RARE are able to deliver great games. Theres no point saying its screwed and will suck ass before we've had our own chance of a hands on.

[Sethos]

Never thought I'd say this about a game like that, it looks fun :D

[ienhz]

Looks like buying Rare is still proving to be a mistake by MS.

[gigapixels Veteran]

I think it sounds awesome.

Definitely on my "to buy" list.

[Windam]

Looks like buying Rare is still proving to be a mistake by MS.

You have no way of knowing that (@ the moment)

[iconboy]

bah, i think these characters are just lame.

[Danrarbc]

bah, i think these characters are just lame.

Yeah, they should totally wear suits made of metal and bullet holes.