Well, after much hype and hope, we finally have our first look at Banjo Threeie, the third in the Banjo Kazooie series. How does it look so far? Well, actually, it looks a lot like Diddy Kong Racing 2 so far. Actually, a whole lot like it.
Free Radical and Ubisoft have apparently finally let it be known that Haze is no longer a timed exclusive for the PS3. In fact, it’s just a flat out exclusive now. That’s right; the Xbox 360 and PC versions are apparently dead.
What is Haze, anyway? Well, it’s the first next-generation title developed b Free Radical, famous for the TimeSplitters series and Second Sight. Free Radical is better known to some as the refugees from Rare who once many moons ago helped develop Goldeneye 007 for the Nintendo 64. Haze is scheduled for release in May. (more…)
In a recent question and answer session known as Scribes on Rare’s website, a fan of the series Banjo-Kazooie inquired as to what type of game we can expect from the legendary developer. Connor Willoughby asked the developer if Banjo will stick to his roots in the platform world or if Rare will fall in line with the current trend of third-person shooters.
The developer’s answer confirmed that Banjo-Threeie, as indicated by Rare, will definitely not be a shooter “unless we sell no copies like Ghoulies and out of desperation give him a gun for the next game, but it also won’t be a traditional platformer.” They also indicated that multiplayer will be a big part of Banjo, but how big will be left to our imaginations for the time being. (more…)
Rare’s classic FPS GolenEye 007 almost saw a release on Xbox Live Arcade. Almost. In the end, though, 1Up.com reports that Nintendo and Microsoft let greed get in the way of one of the most requested classic re-releases. It’s a shame about the greed, but is the lack of a release really a shame?
GoldenEye, if you didn’t know, is one of those games for which gamers hold an almost religious fervor. The game was tie-in with the movie of the same name, and was one of the first console FPS to really integrate story with gameplay. In other words, it was the Half-Life of consoles. Beyond that, though, it was a great party game. The multiplayer showed the potential for social gaming that Halo would capitalize on several years later. Having said all that, it was on the N64.
Games for the N64, like many of its PlayStation and Saturn contemporaries, have not really held up well over the years. While the sharp sprites of classic Super Nintendo and Genesis titles tend to age well, titles form the early days of 3D games do not. N64 titles, especially, not only suffer from bad cameras and low polygon geometry, but the textures tend to be super low resolution, and that’s to say nothing of the frame rates. In other words, GoldenEye hasn’t held very well graphically. Additionally, the gameplay which was fantastic for its day tends to pale in comparison with many modern shooters. The AI isn’t quite as smart and the general horizontal plane of gameplay doesn’t take full advantage of the vertical plane that modern titles do. (more…)
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