The gaming news that spread across sites and blogs yesterday was that development studio Rare doesn't plan to address complaints that the text in next week's Xbox 360 game "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts" is too small to be read comfortably by gamers using standard-definition TVs.

I read this report in many places, but I haven't seen any examples of the problematic text. So I've made some examples, so that you may judge for yourself.

These images are from my review build of the game, running at the highest resolution on my 1080p HD TV, then running on that same TV at 480p and then running on a standard definition set in my office displaying at, at best, 480p. Looking at the shots, I have mixed feelings.

See these images and others, much bigger, below. Read more...

When I asked "Banjo-Kazooie" creator Gregg Mayles about ex-Microsoft Xbox marketing chief Peter Moore's recent comments about Rare and a gaming event in San Francisco yesterday, he became visibly uncomfortable.

Rare is owned by Microsoft and has a big fall this year, with the release of "Viva Pinata" and "Banjo-Kazooie" sequels.

But Moore had recently been speaking skeptically of the once-mighty Rare to the U.K. Guardian's gaming blog, stating "Their skillsets were from a different time and a different place and were not applicable in today's market."

Who likes hearing that their former boss thinks they're out of touch?

Mayles avoided citing Moore by name when I asked him about the comments but defended his company.

"I don't take much notice about what people say about our games I work on, whether positive or negative," he said. "I think you just have to get it clear in your mind what you want to do and try and let that vision come to life. Obviously, when it's finished, you can look back and say 'yeah, that was really successful' or 'no, that wasn't quite so successful,' but at least I can sit back and say 'yeah, that's the game I wanted it to be.'"

Mayles and I talked about Rare's position in gaming these days. If some people are claiming they're out of touch, then how do they see themselves fitting in? Read more...

This week is the first week of the year that I'm caught up listening to gaming podcasts. Among those I subscribe to are "Platform Biased," a hopefully-not-fully-official podcast conducted by testers at Microsoft. They do the normal what-we've-been-playing stuff, talk about the life of game-testers and, in the most recent episode, interview some of the creators of the games they're working on.

Good tidbits leak out in these shows, like the fact that the Xbox 360 "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts" developers at Rare made the game's vehicle editor before crafting the game world around it. Also intriguing: the editor has more than 100 parts, some of which are in-joke references to other Rare games. And? They compare the game to... "Crackdown."

Plus, in the 21st minute, I'm mentioned on the podcast. In the same breath as Denis Dyack? Odd.

Listen to the one-hour "Banjo" episode here: Podcast #006 - *BLEEPS* & Bolts

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Does New Xbox 360 ‘Banjo Kazooie’ Deserve All The Hate?
Violent Mario Cameo In New Xbox 360 ‘Banjo Kazooie’ Just An Innocent Joke, Rare Says

Two months ago, I played a preview build of the Xbox 360's "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts" and was left scratching my head. It was the first "Banjo" game I had played since the two Nintendo 64 versions. I had skipped the Game Boy Advance edition. The 360 game left me and several other reporters who tried it a bit perplexed. It's a platformer designed to be traversed with player-engineered vehicles driven by Banjo the bear and Kazooie the breegull.

The problem in May was that the vehicle-creation editor was confusing. The game didn't play much like the old Banjo games and seemed an odd use of the franchise. I left my May session of the game highly skeptical that development studio Rare was producing a sequel worthy of its original efforts.

Then I played it at E3 and was impressed -- not just because it's the first Xbox 360 game that includes a Nintendo 64 in it -- but because, well...
Read more...

Do you know what Stop N Swop refers to?

If not, stop reading. This post won't mean a thing.

If you have heard of it, then you, like me, probably played "Banjo Kazooie" on the Nintendo 64 and discovered that the game included locked content that couldn't be accessed until, theoretically, the release of the game's sequel, "Banjo Tooie."

The unlocking would occur through an unusual and seemingly dangerous technique called Stop N Swop.

The feature was supposed to allow players to pull a "BK" cartridge out of their Nintendo 64 -- while keeping the power on -- and then plug a "BT" cartridge in its place. This would unlock content in "Kazooie." I think that's what was supposed to happen. Islands and chambers that had been off-limits in "Kazooie" would suddenly be accessible, maybe? Cool stuff would be found.

But gamers never got the opportunity to Stop or to Swop. Even though programming code for Stop N Swop was included in "Kazooie," the feature was not implemented in the final version of "Tooie." Instead, a poor man's version was delivered as collection quest that had players fetching game cartridges in "Tooie" so that they could make Kazooie the bird turn into a dragon.

That was a disappointment.

For many years no one at the game's development studio, Rare, nor its publisher, Nintendo, would explain why Stop N Swap was removed from the "Banjo" series. But explanations have trickled out, attributing the decision to Nintendo but never, to my knowledge, identifying what the issue was.

But finally, last week, I learned an answer that made sense.

Read more...

I saw or played 45 new games last week in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

And if you asked me which one I heard the most negative things about, I wouldn't hesitate to reply:

"Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts."

The vehicle-based platformer for the Xbox 360 from legendary development studio Rare was getting some of the worst response. People who played it were shaking their heads.

Is its first impression a deserved one?

Read more...

There was no malicious intent behind the brief scene Super Mario getting his head blown off in the debut gameplay trailer of "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts And Bolts," a developer working on the game told me yesterday.

Salvatore Fileccia, the lead software engineer behind the upcoming vehicle-based Xbox 360 platformer, said his team has the utmost respect for the Nintendo icon.

He offered a simple explanation for its inclusion.

Read more...