When anyone in my household announces after dinner that they’re in the mood for platforming, it’s immediately followed by impatient sighs. This isn’t because we’ve lost our love for platforming. It’s because to get that pure simplicity, it will require lugging out an older system, untangling old controllers, and rearranging some wires. Platforming has become the sometimes awesome, sometimes nagging little brother tagging along the more mature, modern games, never allowed to go anywhere by himself. Banjo and Kazooie have come back to show us, however, that when this little brother learns to drive, we’ll be free to love again.
I should start off by informing readers I never played the original titles of the same name, and that I think this is a good thing. It’s our nature, especially as gamers, to judge sequels by their predecessors. This won’t happen here, and Rare seems to be in the same mindset. From the get go, the game distances itself from its prequels by introducing a Lord of Games (or L.O.G.) who refers to Banjo, Kazooie, and Gruntilda as second rate video game characters and refuses to give them back any of their old powers. As a means of introduction to the game’s new concept, L.O.G. assures the player that they won’t need their powers, and gives them a vehicle instead.
There’s not much more that needs to be said when it comes to story. L.O.G. is tired of Banjo and Grunty’s bickering and sets up a series of challenges to settle things once and for all. Your job is to finish the challenges; Grunty’s job is to stop you. After this, the game jumps off into the kind of surrealist platforming and exploration you’ll remember from old school platform gaming. No one asks why Mario gets big after he eats mushrooms, or why he throws fireballs with flowers. Banjo-Kazooie plays much the same way with musical notes as currency and collecting jigsaw pieces to unlock levels. There are pigs and rhinos walking around towns and giant scarf runways in ice levels. Coupled with this whimsical world is a self-aware, tongue-in-cheek attitude. Rare knows that cartoony platformers get picked last for dodgeball in school nowadays, so it’s determined not to take itself seriously. Each gaming world has a TV show introduction of each of the characters involved, and constantly references itself as a video game.
At one point in Nuts & Bolts it goes so far as to break the fourth wall. During one level, you’re inside the circuitry of your own Xbox and should you run your vehicle into any of the circuitry, the screen fuzzes. This is where the game might turn some people off. In an arena with this season’s games that rely heavily on realistic immersion, like Fallout 3 or Gears of War 2, not taking yourself seriously kind of makes you wonder whether it’s worth playing in the first place. The challenges themselves, while cute, lack in variation. There are racing challenges, fetch challenges, more racing and fetch challenges, and then only a few unique species thrown in. For the most part, however, it’s going to be your wits with building vehicles against the physics and terrain of the game. If you can’t shut your mind off of the childish antics and corniness, getting to the meat of the game play will be difficult. There are some significantly long load times and getting through some of the dialogue and challenge explanations can be time consuming. With all due respect to Rare, they do give you the option to skip most of it. All of this isn’t to imply a lack of fun, but there’s a reason that cartoony platformers don’t make their rounds with gamers anymore. It took me a good five to six hours of game play to fall in love with the mechanics.
Once you’re in, it will be obvious where the soul of the game excels. The game will constantly remind you throughout your quests that the best way to get around is on wheels. And you’ll never want it any other way. One of your primary objectives will be to collect parts from around the worlds to build bigger, faster, more varied vehicles for the various challenges presented. Blueprints are available; but, the real addiction will come from being able to custom construct all manners of useful vehicles. You can build cars, boats, and planes using propellers, spoilers, and different levels of engines, wheels, and weapons. Be careful. There’s a nifty, Looney tunes like physics that goes into navigating the world. Much of the logic will be readily apparent. One engine goes fast, two engines goes faster. Too tall of a car, and you’ll fall over; Too heavy of a car and you won’t be winning any races. A spring allows you to jump and putting wings on a car will have you gliding off of cliffs.
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is slow to get started, and like I’ve said before, you’ll need some patience with all the cheekiness, but once you get a decent stock of parts in your garage, you’ll spend hours in the workshop and testing arena pimping your ride. The game is relatively easy but the complication involved, and the number of parts, can make the game a bit daunting. I found myself wondering how many children might pick up this title attracted by the lovable bear and the wise cracking bird, only to find that they can’t build a car that navigates turns correctly. There will be plenty of times when a seemingly awesome design that you’ve cooked up won’t even move forward. There’s an incredible amount of depth to be had here, but it takes a while to learn.
