In One Giant Leap, Dramus18 charts the evolution of the platformer genre, one year at a time. This month: Banjo-Kazooie builds on the template for the 3D platformer.
Two months ago, we looked at Super Mario 64, one of the most influential games of all time. Then last month we immediately looked elsewhere, to a game with 0% SM64 DNA. But that won't be the norm. Conservatively speaking, the next 5 games in this series will all be SM64 disciples in one way or another. And we start this tour with the game most often cited as SM64's immediate successor, true heir, and full superior:1 Banjo-Kazooie.
Listen, we're all adults here. We can admit that objectivity is a myth invented to sell newspapers, right? All you can do is be honest about where you're coming from. So, with that in mind, I should say now that I first played Banjo-Kazooie when I was 5. I was obsessed immediately, constantly doodling objects and locations from the game, and locations that theoretically could be in the game. It, more than probably any other game,2 is the reason I became a game designer. It's been my favorite game ever since, and probably always will be. Meanwhile Super Mario 64 is a game I played 6 months later, and never fully vibed with in part because it has always felt like a pale imitation of Banjo-Kazooie. I promise to make this not just some forum-tier manifesto for why my fave rules and its nearest competitor drools, but also it's not not that. So, with the motivation behind my reasoning laid bare, let us proceed.
Banjo-Kazooie pretty clearly builds upon the framework laid out by Super Mario 64. It too is a platformer in a fully open 3D world, broken up into a central hub level set in a castle (with a courtyard tutorial to boot!) and several "spoke" levels accessed via painting. Your goal is to collect golden doodads that open up access to more levels, where you can collect more doodads. But having SM64 as a baseline lets Banjo make some more focused design choices. It got to see what worked and what didn't in that pioneering title, and make different choices where necessary.
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2021-12-07 00:00:01
dramus18
In 1994, Nintendo and developer Rare released Donkey Kong Country, A 2D platformer with per-rendered graphics. To explain per-rendered graphics, they are graphics were made via computer technology. Keep in mind this was the mid 90s so having graphics rendered via computer technology to give the game a realistic and very cool look was revolutionary for its time. This was a huge step forward in graphics not just for the Super Nintendo, but gaming as a whole. With a fresh look of everyone's favorite video game ape in Donkey Kong along with a huge marketing campaign, it's safe to say everyone went bananas over Donkey Kong Country. Not to mention the game being a very fun 2D platformer also helped its sells. I reviewed the original Donkey Kong Country here. It may be wise to read that review before this one. With Donkey Kong Country being such a massive success, it only makes sense for the game to get a sequel. Lucky, gamers would only have to wait about a year to get more Donkey Kong Country in their Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems.
In 1995, Rare and Nintendo would once again struck banana gold with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong-Quest (Conquest) for the Super Nintendo. The game was now bigger, badder, and in some cases meaner, but in a good way. In retrospect and I'll just put the argument to bed now because I know it's likely in your head what I think the best of the Donkey Kong Country trilogy is. Donkey Kong Country 2 is my personal favorite, but it depends on who you ask. To be fair all three of the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country games are great. But most do say DKC2 is the primal peak of Donkey Kong and I'm personally in the same camp. But what makes the second game the best for most fans? Let me review some more Donkey Kong.
First thing you will notice is the theme of the game has a much darker tone. The story is King K. Rool (Final Boss from the last game but now under the name Kaptain K. Rool) is back and has kidnapped Donkey Kong! Now it's up to his best friend from the first game Diddy Kong to take the lead role to be the hero, next man up ... or in this case ape. However instead of K. Rool invading DK's home of Kongo Bongo Island, we're now playing on K Rool's turf this time around on Crocodile Island. Listen to the world map song this time around, last game was much more relaxed, but as soon as you hear this, you know it's going down.
To continue reading this article, please go to: medium.com
2025-02-15 00:00:02
Ethan Pendleton
In 1985, when he was 14 years old, the game designer Martin Hollis asked his mother to help him write a letter to the estate of the author AA Milne. The teenager wanted to make a video game featuring Milne's most famous character, the honey-addict bear Winnie-the-Pooh. To date, Hollis had written only a few games on the BBC Micro in his bedroom: festive-themed clones of popular arcade titles that swapped, say, the Easter bunny for Pac-Man, or Santa Claus for Space Invaders. A PC magazine had paid Hollis 40 (pounds) to publish the source code to one of his Christmas-themed games, which readers could type out and play. A game featuring Winnie-the-Pooh, Hollis reasoned, could be a lucrative hit. A few weeks later he received a letter from Milne's estate, provisionally offering him the video game rights to Winnie-the-Pooh for a minimum of 50,000 (pounds). "It was out of our league at that point in time," he says.
Twelve years later, Hollis released GoldenEye 007 for the Nintendo 64, a video game based on the James Bond film. There was little fanfare: Bond, like Winnie-the-Pooh, was a household name, but licensed games were viewed as the lowest form of a medium already widely considered to be profligate. Most movie "tie-ins", as they were disparagingly called, were made to a punishing schedule to ensure they launched alongside the film. Their developers typically worked blind, limited by the narrative constraints of scripts that were unfinished and rarely suited to interactive treatment.
"Everyone seemed to believe that a game made from a movie had to be bad, or mediocre," says Hollis. "But I had the confidence of youth."
GoldenEye was, indeed, different. The film had already been out for two years when the game launched in August 1997. Its game tie-in featured tautly designed levels filled with moments of unscripted drama, tantalising secrets and a delicious competitive mode in which up to four friends caroused around themed maps, playing as various characters from Bond's roster of heroes and villains. The game was a dazzling revelation. In time, GoldenEye sold more than 8m copies and dominated the rental charts for three years. Built by 12 young people working under punishing conditions, GoldenEye brought the first-person shooter to consoles and laid the design foundations on which many of the world's most popular games stand today. Like any life-changing success, it came with equally enriching and destructive side-effects.
To continue reading this article, please go to: The Guardian
2022-08-19 09:00:03
Simon Parking
My introduction to this medium came through my copy of Monster Bash, arcades, department stores, and my buddies. One of them owned a Super Nintendo and the first two Donkey Kong Country titles, both of which enthralled me. They were unlike anything else I had seen: silly and snarky, yet moody, exciting, and as photorealistic as their 16-bit hardware could manage. Their ambient scores are wonderful. And they're fun to play, too. Only with the release of their flawed Game Boy Advance ports a decade later would I finally get to purchase Rare's Country trilogy, and only through the Wii's Virtual Console service a few years after that would I experience them as originally intended. I adore all three, with Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest proudly enduring as my second favorite game of all time.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The first console to enter my possession was a Nintendo 64, my first games for it were Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64, and through the former I rediscovered my old buddy Donkey Kong. Soon, I learned he was getting a new adventure of his own: Donkey Kong 64 (his partner, Diddy Kong, had also recently scored a racing spin-off, which I savored at friends' houses). I was excited, eager to experience the gorilla's biggest adventure yet!
I went through Donkey Kong 64 with my two best friends at the time; I saw the whole game. However, going through my copy alone was ... strange. I couldn't articulate why, but the game wasn't capturing me like Mario 64 or Country. I ... wasn't having fun. Never before had I consciously disliked playing a game; I even gave up on it midway through. Over the years, I've made countless attempts to finish Donkey Kong 64 on my own-and, finally, have successfully done so. This "Beat the Backlog" article has been a long time coming, and since Donkey Kong's my favorite platforming franchise, I only wish it was a positive one.
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2023-06-30 00:00:04
Cart Boy
I want to talk to you about Battletoads.
Battletoads is one of those game franchises that had so much personality and quality that it should have survived for years. Unfortunately, it's become a relic of semi-obscurity that is just now starting to mount a possible comeback with its inclusion in the Rare Replay, a set of 30 old-school games. Not only does this include the original, tough-as-nails Battletoads, but the brilliant arcade game as well. There's other good stuff mixed in there, such as Conker's Bad Fur Day, Perfect Dark, and the Banjo-Kazooie series.
Battletoads began on the NES in 1991, and being a Turtles knockoff isn't what immediately comes to mind when people are reminded of it. If anything, people talk about how frustratingly hard it is. Believe me, it's a fantastic game. Some of the best designs and ideas in any NES game for sure. It's just so unforgivingly hard. There are plenty of tough games for the old, gray box, but this one is like the Olympics of hard games. It's like playing the last level of Ghosts 'n' Goblins followed by playing a couple minutes of Silver Surfer followed by fighting Mike Tyson.
The titular toads are made up of Pimple (the big toad), Rash (the too-cool-for-school toad), and Zitz (the...um ...one who is also a toad). In the intro, Pimple and the generic princess character Angelica are kidnapped by the Dark Queen and her evil minions. That always seemed weird to me. Why give us three toads when one isn't even on the board to begin with? At least the Ninja Turtles games never said, "Mikey, Don, and, Raph aren't playable. Enjoy using Leo and only Leo!" It's something that will come up a few more times in the following installments.
Zits and Rash are off to save the day and begin with a rather enjoyable beat 'em up side scroller level followed immediately by a level where the toads are lowered down a big hole in the ground filled with ravenous birds. So far so good.
To continue reading this article, please go to: DenOfGeek
2018-06-11 00:00:05
Gavin Jasper