Review: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Mike Bantick
Saturday, 17 January 2009 09:59

Entertainment

The bear and bird make their debut on the Xbox 360 in a game that is vast, detailed and at times frustrating.  Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts gets our heroes out of retirement, back to battle a souped up Gruntilda in a tongue-in-cheek vehicular showdown, orchestrated by the Lord of Games.

Banjo and Kazooie are old, well at least as fair as video game characters go.  First appearing on the Nintendo 64 a decade ago, the bear and his backpack imprisoned bird thought they had retired to the meadows of the video game stud farm.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
	Developer	Rare
	Publisher	Microsoft
	Rating	G
Xbox 360

But the pong-faced Lord of Games has forced them out of their waste increasing slumber for one more battle against long-time antagonist Gruntilda.  The cyber enhanced witch wishes to turn a rather gaily coloured ‘showdown town’ into a high return residential development.

Developer Rare, has taken the opportunity to cram as much detail into this iteration of Banjo-Kazooie as possible.

Firstly there is the humorous storyline where all characters in the game are introduced in a ‘love boat’ theme way, with full knowledge that they each are taking part in a video game. 

The Lord of Games (L.O.G) introduces each game-play element, with a twist of humour about the elements origin and place in the world of video games.  So we have collectibles - musical notes, Jiggies, Trophies and Jinjo bingo pieces – and other video-game clichés such as unlockable worlds, mini-games, and a smattering more.

But the presentation of these is top-notch and adds to the colourful self referential fun poking atmosphere that Rare were trying to achieve.

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