"If you said, 'What would you say Rare represents?' I'd say, 'We're pretty flexible. We're kind of able to jump from different types of game to different types of game. We're not known as a studio that sits on one type of game and repeats it. I'd say Rare is capable of doing pretty much anything we want. I always say a good game designer should be able to design any type of game. It might not be a game you want to play, but you should be able to do it. If we want to make a flight simulator, we should be able to have the confidence that, as a company, we could make a really good flight simulator. Whether it'd ever do well is another question. [laughs]"

-- "Banjo Kazooie" series creator Gregg Mayles in response to a question asking if Rare would ever make something as drastically different as a gritty third-person-shooter

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When you play "Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts" in November, you won't be playing what Rare initially set out to make with their revival of "Banjo Kazooie."

Series creator Gregg Mayles told me last week at a review event for the game in San Francisco that Rare went through several iterations of a new "Banjo Kazooie" before settling on their current path.

One of them even included a pseudo-remake of the original Nintendo 64 platformer produced alongside Nintendo. Keep reading to discover the three iterations (two of them now dead) of a next-generation "Banjo Kazooie."

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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...

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...
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