30th October 2008, 3:34 PM
It works surprisingly well. The flight of those things is not what you would call "all powerful platform defeating", as they fly in awkward ways.
Seriously I had big doubts about the game but playing the demo has given me very high hopes, and all I had was the first world to play with. It's still very much a banjo game. You talk to guys, they ask you to help them, you do stuff for them.
For example, in that first world I first found out I had to race a mole to knock the "businessman" out of him (Bottles the Mole so ya know). Yep, a race, but it was fun! Aside from all sorts of weird obstacles fitting a cartoony world, the vehicles you got control of worked in weird ways, in that they were top heavy with oddly placed wheels, meaning you could easily topple them over, and further get your wheels stuck on another vehicle. That was fun, but was expected of a "vehicle game".
After that, I found myself having to defend a robo-shark's eyes from electro-gypsies or whatever. You COULD just get out and fight them, but it doesn't work too well. Rather, you will use whatever car you have built and have to knock them all out of the way. Crazy classic Rare fun that was. Further, I had the objective of knocking a ball shaped Jengo fello off the top of a huge tower as far as I could, with a well timed ram. You still gather notes, and still have to climb things, and still have to explore, there's just a lot of tracks now.
The videos just don't do it justice.
That said, it's important to realize that it's NOT Banjo-Threeie, it's meant to be it's own game with unique gameplay, and in this I'd say they succeeded. I was honestly getting sick of the "old formula" anyway. They do a good job here. It's certainly not a "racing game", though there is the occasional race, but rather a platformer with cars.
Seriously I had big doubts about the game but playing the demo has given me very high hopes, and all I had was the first world to play with. It's still very much a banjo game. You talk to guys, they ask you to help them, you do stuff for them.
For example, in that first world I first found out I had to race a mole to knock the "businessman" out of him (Bottles the Mole so ya know). Yep, a race, but it was fun! Aside from all sorts of weird obstacles fitting a cartoony world, the vehicles you got control of worked in weird ways, in that they were top heavy with oddly placed wheels, meaning you could easily topple them over, and further get your wheels stuck on another vehicle. That was fun, but was expected of a "vehicle game".
After that, I found myself having to defend a robo-shark's eyes from electro-gypsies or whatever. You COULD just get out and fight them, but it doesn't work too well. Rather, you will use whatever car you have built and have to knock them all out of the way. Crazy classic Rare fun that was. Further, I had the objective of knocking a ball shaped Jengo fello off the top of a huge tower as far as I could, with a well timed ram. You still gather notes, and still have to climb things, and still have to explore, there's just a lot of tracks now.
The videos just don't do it justice.
That said, it's important to realize that it's NOT Banjo-Threeie, it's meant to be it's own game with unique gameplay, and in this I'd say they succeeded. I was honestly getting sick of the "old formula" anyway. They do a good job here. It's certainly not a "racing game", though there is the occasional race, but rather a platformer with cars.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)