Banjo's back!
Let's face it, Nintendo has never been short of loveable characters but when bumbling honey bear, Banjo, and his bird pal, Kazooie, arrived in their first N64 title ten years ago they became instant icons, going on to star in a series of wonderful platform adventures. Now they're back, on a new console and with a completely new style of game. If you're expecting lots of platform leaping, rope climbing and object gathering you'll be in for a surprise. Nuts & Bolts, you see, is where Banjo-Kazooie meets... well... Meccano.
Car's the star
The action takes place eight years after the events depicted in Banjo-Tooie. Our heroes are now washed up slobs, loafing about their homeland of Spiral Mountain eating pizza and playing videogames. When arch enemy Gruntilda shows up for another fight they're interrupted by a character named Lord of the Games who dumps the characters into his own virtual world. Here, they must fight for the property rights for Spiral Mountain, once and for all.
It's a brilliant, highly innovative system ensuring that no two players will ever complete the same mission in the same way.
What follows is a series of crackpot challenges. Players must compete in races, find crazy objects, protect characters from robotic enemies and other typical Banjo-Kazooie lunacy, all the while earning Jiggies (the series' currency) and unlocking new areas. How do you complete these missions? Well, that's the defining element of the game: you do it by building your own incredible vehicles out of a vast array of parts including wings, motors, springs, wheels, propellers and guns.
Build and boast
Exactly what you construct is up to you - you've just got to assess the challenge ahead and think about the best car, boat, truck or plane for the job. If it's a race, you'll need plenty of engine power and not too much weight, but if your task is to protect another character you may want lots of armour and weaponry. The controls are simple, whatever you build, though handling can be a little frisky and wild at times.
The six worlds are filled to the fizzing brim with crazed creatures, lop-sided architecture and hidden surprises.
It's a brilliant, highly innovative system ensuring that no two players will ever complete the same mission in the same way. And to celebrate this sense of uniqueness, gamers can upload and share replays of their best contraptions, allowing everyone to learn from what successful inhabitants have done right. Alternatively, if you don't want to spend hours inventing weird forms of transport, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts provides blueprints for basic vehicles - they're not going to win the big points but they'll get you through.
If the inventiveness of the vehicle construction doesn't impress you, the extraordinary visuals will. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts has six enormous cartoon worlds for you to explore, each filled to the fizzing brim with crazed creatures, lop-sided architecture and hidden surprises. There are also loads of fun characters to meet up with too, including old favourites like Mumbo Jumbo, Bottles and Captain Blubber, all happy to add in-jokes and innuendo to the already joyful mix.
Share 'n swop
Naturally, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts boasts multiplayer modes with various head-to-head challenges. There's also an intriguing Stop 'N' Swop option, that connects the game to the Xbox LIVE Arcade release of the original Banjo-Kazooie adventure. Your accomplishments in the new title open up extra content in the golden oldie, providing more incentive to really get involved in the, ahem, nuts and bolts of the experience.
Sure, there will be some stalwart Banjo fans who yearn for an epic platformer in the style of the previous games. This is not that platformer. Instead, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a unique driving adventure with a huge emphasis on user-generated content and a beautiful series of worlds to discover. In a way, it's Xbox 360's answer to LittleBigPlanet - a game that puts the player at the heart of the design process. And that's a really fun place to be.
GAME's Verdict
- Innovative vehicle construction gameplay.
- Beautiful visuals.
- Fun multiplayer modes.
- Veterans will probably miss the old platform adventuring.
- Handling can be tricky.
- Maybe too cute for Gears of War fanatics.
Review by: Keith 'Kazooie' Stuart
Version Tested: Xbox 360
Review Published: 05.12.08