Let’s get the big news out of the way first: Stop ‘n’ Swop is back, and this time, it does something. GameCyte went hands-on with Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts on the show floor at this year’s E3, and got to experience the bird & bear’s new knack for motoring. Your price for flight is but a click away!
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts marks the return of Rare’s N64-era platforming duo, placing them in a new game which emphasizes vehicular gameplay and user-generated contraptions over traditional jumping and baddie-bashing. This isn’t to say that Banjo and Kazooie can’t ever get out of the car; a single button-press will put them on their feet, allowing them to run, jump, and smash. Also, Kazooie appears to have robbed Dr. Freeman at some point, wielding a gravity gun which can be used to pick up and move nearly any object in the game — including the massive vehicles the pair will be piloting. For the most part, however, players will want to use the game’s many vehicles in order to effectively cross the massive worlds. I managed to get behind the wheel of a few land and air vehicles, with the game’s Global Product Manager, Angela Gaynor, keeping me on course.
Angela told me that BK: N&B will consist of a “hub” world known as Showdown Town, as well as five ancillary worlds in which our heroes will compete in various challenges and acquire the game’s many collectibles. Showdown Town was not shown (down) during the demo, but I got to explore a large portion of “Banjoland,” a massive and colorful arena full of wide expanses of land and water, as well as any number of artificial hills, ramps, and offbeat characters from past games. Aiding my exploration process was a real-time map, displayed in the corner of the screen, highlighting the locations of all available challenge missions. The interface was very GTA in execution. Driving the vehicles worked as one might expect — left-stick steering combined with an analog-trigger accelerator. In addition, though, a few of the vehicles had extra button controls depending on the various installed accessories. A vehicle with a massive spring on the bottom could be launched into the air with another button press, helpfully displayed in another corner for quick reference. This quick guide is likely to come in handy, given the broad variety of gadgets which can be attached to the vehicles; I was able to play around with the aforementioned spring launcher, a missile system, a cross between a grappling hook and a wrecking ball, and others.
When she learned that I had played through both N64 Banjo-Kazooie titles, Angela directed me to various portions of Banjoland which had been crafted into museum-like BK exhibits, showcasing character models and interactive “talking heads” ripped directly from the old games, as a friendly nod to the series’ longtime fans. BK: N&B has a wealth of nostalgic content included, and furthermore, will finally, finally, make use of the Stop ‘n’ Swop, the aborted cartridge-sharing experiment from the original Banjo-Kazooie. When Banjo-Kazooie 1 makes its way to XBLA later this year, Angela promised that it would be able to use the hidden Stop ‘n’ Swop area to share content with BK: N&B. We didn’t learn any particulars, but we’re glad to see one of Rare’s longest running jokes finally coming into its own. (Angela also wasn’t willing to talk about the N64 console I actually spotted in Banjoland.)
Nuts & Bolts contains several vehicular challenges, from races to fetch quests to stunt performances, and players are encouraged to design their own vehicles which will be best suited to the tasks at hand. If players are uncreative or lazy, however, Angela explained that players will never be obligated to create even a single vehicle. Each challenge comes pre-stocked with at least one suitable conveyance, and while the challenges can certainly be completed using the game’s original lineup of machines, the true challenge will be in trying to outdo one’s own records with customized vehicles and unconventional methods. The first challenge I saw involved moving several house-sized soccer balls into an appropriately gigantic goal. “If I were making a vehicle for this,” I thought, “I’d stick a pair of forks onto the front of the vehicle so I could trap the balls in front of me and push them around.” Apparently, someone at Rare had thought the same thing, because such a vehicle had already been included. There were other choices, however, including methods I hadn’t thought of — one of the other vehicles was essentially a giant box on wheels, which allowed Banjo and Kazooie to drive up to a ball, hop out and place it in the box with the gravity gun, and then haul it over to the goal. A bit slower, but certainly easy to do and highly effective.
In the brief period I spent with BK: N&B, I was able to move a bunch of soccer balls, haul a massive chunk of ice underneath a helicopter, and fling a stunt car into pretty much every available surface in Banjoland. I look forward to breaking more things when the game launches on 360 this holiday season.
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