The game plays by you building your own vehicles with the different parts you collect. At first the vehicle-building system seems complex and difficult to master, but after learning the basics, any kid could create anything! With all of the parts, you could make vehicles ideal for riding on land, flying through the air, gliding through snow and water, and even swimming underwater! Although the majority of the games were based around on-foot platforming, there are still parts you can run through and explore. Due to the use of vehicles now being available, the worlds are MASSIVE and detailed. It would take minutes to cross on foot, which is why riding a vehicle is a must. In total there are 6 worlds to explore, each comprised of several acts. Each act of the level is huge with characters and lots of enemies and physics objects to carry and push around. The gameplay is centered on using your vehicles to complete challenges, races, and games. Completing them can earn you notes or a jiggy which can be collected from a bank rather than "stored" in Kazooie like previous ventures. If they're completed fast enough, you can earn a T.T. trophy which are used to get even more jiggies. The whole point of the game is collecting enough to fight the final boss.
The characters are funny and well designed with well written dialogue. Some characters talk with weird grammar on purpose to sound like they have accents or can't speak English very well.
The graphics are beautiful; all of the levels are HUGE with extreme detail, color, and characters. The game runs super smooth with no slowdown or lag whatsoever with everything appearing clearly from far away. The soundtrack is also incredible. The majority of it is borrowed, remixed, and remade orchestrally from older Banjo-Kazooie games. The sound effects are all brand new and sound great. With surround sound you feel like you're in the world. The game is very long and has tons of replay value due to so many secrets and challenges to complete.
On top of this there is online multiplayer. You can play using default vehicles or custom made vehicles. There are lots of modes to choose from. You can simply race in land, sea, or air or complete in fast paced matches trying to destroy each other with your crazy vehicles. If parents are worried about other people's online behaviors you can choose to mute or ban any disruptive or trash-talking players. You can also set limits for how long they can play online.
Overall, the game is great for BOTH children and adults, it will be enjoyed for months and it's a great value for what you're getting. I highly recommend getting this game for the holiday season for any kids. It's a bargain and an unforgettable experience.
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The game is somewhat fun, but.... it's not what you might expect from a BK game. The game is basically one challenge after another to win Jiggys and trophies. Unfortunately, but you might like this, most of the challenges are timed races. I was looking forward to kicking back, exploring worlds and finding Jiggys, Notes and Jingos, not having to beat certain times to win Jiggys. The leisure is gone...Even this might not be so bad, except building and choosing the correct vehicles is confusing and the interface is very confusing with different ways to select and build vehicles. The collection of Acts is disjointed and the constant back and forth is frustrating. Expect to see the puzzle loading screen A LOT as you move back and forth between interfaces.
And one last thing, which others have mentioned, is the text. This game has TONS of reading and the script is very small and sometimes, scrolls automatically and quickly before you can read what was displayed. I have a huge tv and it's very very difficult to read and quite maddening. This piece of the game is very poor.
I hate not giving this game 5 stars because I love the BK series and want to see more, but they missed the mark on this one. They should have stuck to the previous platform and just enhanced it with the vehicle aspect to make exploring the worlds more fun than just endless challenges and clunky confusing interfaces.
Best Deals for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts - Xbox 360
*Introduction*"Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts" was highly anticipated by Banjo fans after a long hiatus for the series. The two N64 games rank among the best titles on the system, containing hours of exploration and platforming fun alongside mystifying secrets and Rare's legendary sense of twisted humor. When a new Banjo game for the 360 was announced, fans were overjoyed by the idea that they would be in control of the Bear and Bird yet again. However, many turned skeptical when it was revealed that the platforming and exploration was to be replaced with vehicle building. Now that Nuts and Bolts is finally here, does it live up to the high standard set by Kazooie and Tooie despite the changes?
*Story*
"Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts" takes place eight years after Banjo-Tooie. The bear and bird duo have completely let themselves go, spending their retirement lazing around their home in Spiral Mountain playing video games and stuffing their now chubby faces. Gruntilda the witch has also seen better days. Left as a disembodied skull after the final battle of Tooie, she somehow manages to bounce her way into Spiral Mountain for a final attempt at revenge. She challenges the washed up heroes to a rather pathetic battle, but before anything can happen, a computer with a cape called L.O.G., the self-proclaimed Lord of Games, appears to pause the action. He restores the bear and bird to their former fit glory and gives Grunty a mechanical body, offering each side a vehicle and a chance to settle the score once and for all in Show Down town.
The main storyline is fine for what it is, but the execution of the premise is disappointing. The worlds of past Banjo games were filled to the brim with charming offbeat characters, yet "Nuts & Bolts" includes only a handful of these while also offering little in the way of new characters. The characters that do appear are not utilized well at all. They each appear in the different acts as "actors" playing different roles that are largely uninteresting, stripping the characters of their personality. There are also a few other small cameos through the game that amount to little more than lifeless props, most notably in Banjoland. For a series that has always relied so much on the charm of its characters and setting, this is a major disappointment.
*Gameplay*
The gameplay is the most controversial aspect of this game. Rather than platforming your way through the worlds with the duo's classic arsenal of moves like the previous titles, you are given vehicle parts to assemble in order to accomplish various goals. While there is a sparse amount of stripped down platforming in Showdown Town, it makes up a very small part of the game and fails to reach the quality of adventuring from the previous titles. Showdown Town is a typical sandbox game city filled with generic, copy-pasted characters walking around to make it appear lively. This area acts as a hub to several worlds that are split up into acts containing Grand Theft Auto style missions for which you will build the vehicles. Each successfully completed mission will earn you a jiggy, which is then placed in a bank in Showdown Town for the purpose of opening more worlds. There are also notes scattered throughout the levels that act as currency to purchase vehicle parts and blueprints. One fairly large problem with the note system is that there is a limited number of them, yet Rare has made it possible to spend an infinite amount of them on bribing the police pig. After a few bribes you will quickly see that this isn't worth doing, but it only takes a measly 10 notes spent here to be screwed out of being able to afford all of the vehicle parts and blueprints.
The vehicle building is easy to pick up and is actually somewhat fun. It works similar to Legos in that you take small pieces, rotate them around, and stick them together in the desired shape, adding wheels, fuel, weapons, wings, or a number of other items. As long as you pay attention to weight distribution and use common sense for part placement, there is no trouble at all creating vehicles that work just the way you desire. If the idea of building vehicles doesn't appeal to you, Humba Wumba offers a number of pre-made blueprints that you can purchase with the notes you collect.
Unfortunately, the missions that make up the actual meat of the game leaves a lot to be desired. In order to accommodate the vehicles, the worlds are fairly large and empty aside from a few harmless enemies, and the level design is not interesting at all. The exploration from previous games is completely gone, leaving you to follow your mini map in the direction of icons that mark missions. One of the things Rare touted as the main draw this game was the ability to use creativity to approach these missions in different ways. Unfortunately, this is nowhere near as great as it sounds. The missions are straightforward and simplistic, and you'll be seeing the same types of missions over and over again, consisting mostly of uninspired tasks like races, fetching things from one place to another, and knocking over random items. Overall, the missions are not very interesting or fun, because by trying leave a small amount of possibility for open ended gameplay through creative vehicle design, Rare was extremely limited in how complex the missions could actually be. They amount to choices of whether you want to carry the items in tray or with the sticky ball and whether you want to push the random stuff over or blow the random stuff over. The game does not allow a whole lot of room for imagination unless you just want to mess around and build vehicles for no purpose.
*Replay Value*
After you complete the game there isn't much left to do other than try to get high scores in the missions for a spot on the leaderboards. You can replay the missions as many times as you want, but replaying the same dull, repetitive tasks will get old unless you are really into beating high scores. The real replay value comes from just messing around with the vehicle creator to create wacky vehicles for no real purpose.
One issue I found irritating was that you are only allowed to have one save file, so you can't start a new game without overwriting your old one the way you could in the old games. While you are allowed to replay missions whenever you want, it is simply unacceptable to be limited in this way in the age of hard drives
*Visuals*
The graphics are very polished and well made on a technical level. However, the actual visual style of the game is rather bland aside from a few interesting touches like stitches to make certain areas seem like they were made from patchwork. The environments lack personality compared to the worlds in the old games and are not very memorable. There are some good ideas behind some of the levels, but the design just doesn't follow through. The redesigns of the characters look alright for the most part, but Banjo's new square look is odd, and the new art style lacks the charm the series once had.
*Sound*
The music is pretty good for the most part, but it mostly consists of remixes of tunes from the old games. There are hardly any new songs, although the few that exist are nice. The sound effects are well done, with all of the proper grunts and gurgles coming out of the characters just as you would expect.
*Summation*
Overall, the game does not really live up to the quality of the previous games. If you are a huge fan of the other Banjo-Kazooie games starving for a new 3d platformer you will be severely disappointed. Even taken on its own terms, the game is dull, uninspired, and repetitive. Creating vehicles is fun in itself for a little while, but unless the idea of virtual Legos really excites you, it's not going to hold your attention. Not all change is good, and novelty just for the sake of it can backfire.
Honest reviews on Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts - Xbox 360
I will try to mention briefly everything that needs to be mentioned.First, the issue of staying true to its originals. From what I see, this is the biggest obstacle to overcome. If you never played Banjo-Kazooie or Banjo-Tooie on Nintendo 64, then there is a very great chance that you will enjoy this game. I personally had little experience with the originals and had only played the first one a week or two before playing N&B. N&B shares the characters and wittiness of the first game, and there is no way you can dislike this. Rare took a new direction with this Banjo Kazooie game, and if you give it a chance (take off your nostalgia glasses beforehand), you may very well enjoy it.
This game is really all about fun. I've put many long hours into this game (definitely a couple days worth), and enjoyed every bit of it. Most of the game involves building vehicles and using them to complete challenges. Nevertheless, there is still some platforming at its heart, where you will end up spending a lot of time on foot and in your vehicle collecting notes (to buy new parts) and seeking Mumbo crates (which get you new parts to build new vehicles).
Let's talk challenges. I'll admit that there is nothing groundbreaking in this delivery, as you simply walk up to the character making the challenge and complete it if you so please. The real beauty lies in the specific challenges themselves. Being a vehicle-based game, you can expect a lot of races (sea, air, and/or land), but there are some exceptionally unique and fun challenges. All the challenges are relatively easy to complete (to achieve the minimum award), but if you want to challenge yourself, try beating some high scores or going for the highest award. Also to be noted is the fact that there are a handful of very tough challenges (if you wish to achieve the highest award).
Let's talk customization. Here is where the ingenuity of this game is. Possibilities of custom vehicles are endless. There are a ton of parts (some simple, some unique) to use, and you will really strive to unlock more parts. If you are creative and dream of building cars, planes, helicopters, submarines, boats, hovercrafts, any type of vehicle, this is where you will spend A LOT of time. Save as many vehicle creations as you like. Even if you don't use a vehicle for a challenge, you can still just free roam in the 6 different worlds which you unlock.
The worlds (i.e. "maps") are all unique and have lots of goodies hidden throughout them. They are all rather large size and compliment vehicles of all types.
There is multiplayer also, but I have not honestly used it enough to have a good opinion on it. The single player experience is completely worthwhile and you will get your money's worth out of it. The biggest downfall, I would say, with the multiplayer is the very limited fanbase. This game went completely under the radar, and I have little reason to doubt that there are only a handful of players on at any given time, if at all.
The graphics are not perfect, but it is a cartoon and you will not notice any problems with them during your gameplay. The cartoon style actually looks quite nice and is very appealing.
The soundtrack is subjective. I personally love it. You can sample the soundtrack on Amazon, but as a short description, it is very upbeat and pleasing music. It blends in perfectly with the visual style, and tops off an overall great game.
If you're a purist BK fan, maybe you will feel "offended" seeing your two characters in these roles (*gasp* vehicles). If you are, then I have to say, get over yourself. That shouldn't stop you from enjoying a game, which is one of the most enjoyable games on Xbox 360.
Surprisingly, this game does what few can do properly. It can be played easily by young kids AND enjoyed thoroughly by parents and more mature audiences. Give a young kid the controller, and they will have a blast driving the premade vehicles and running around with the bird and the bear. Give a young adult the controller, and Mumbo's Motors (the place to make your vehicles) will suddenly become the game's headquarters, and the clever witticisms will become apparent.
To conclude, I say: give this game a chance. If you have Xbox Live, you can try the demo. Otherwise, it is just $20; what is there to lose? I preordered this game for $40 and it is probably the best $40 I have ever spent on video games.
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