Reviews
The tale of a fight between good and evil is a plot that is often used in games. Back in 1998 Rare brought us a story about a big goofy bear called Banjo who carried his wise mouth bird side-kick in his backpack. These two had a mission to save Banjo's sister Tooty from the evil witch Gruntilda (or Grunty for short) who was going to use Tooty's beauty to make herself beautiful. Whilst it may not sound like the most exciting plot, Banjo Kazooie was one of platforming (early 3D) greats and went on the be one of N64s best selling games. Now Banjo Kazooie is back after 10 years for a release on the Xbox 360 Live Arcade, the question is does it stand the test of time?
For its release on the Live Arcade Rare have not done a simply port, instead choosing to tweak the game by smoothing off the graphics, adding widescreen support all whilst not altering the gameplay that made the original excellent. Whilst the game has been updated to an acceptable level, much of the original ugly texture work is still present which is a bit of a shame but also understandable as Rare would have wanted to maintain as much of the original game as possible to keep the fans happy.
The gameplay of Banjo and Kazooie, for those that missed the experience the first time around consists of an open world which you can explore. From this world you can access and unlock other areas by completing missions and collecting jigsaw puzzle pieces (jiggies) and musical notes. These items are found through both exploring and completing tasks. A feature that’s great for those who are having trouble collecting everything in a level is the ability to move ahead the other levels before completely finishing the previous level. This is a welcome inclusion (that was of course in the original) as not all of us are good at finding every last item in a level. Thankfully there is more to the game than collecting items although this is the core of the experience.
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