First Banjo review published – IGN goes with 8.3

I cancelled my preorder after the demo. Looks fantastic but the vehicle controls were too loose and frustrating for what you are asked to do with them. Kind of suffers in the same way LBP can, physics based controls and flexible construction. It just doesn’t have enough charm or fun to balance it, where for me LBP does in spades.

I guess you mean the actual vehicles you got in the demo suck… because the vehicle controls are accelerate / brake, left / right.

Loose controls is what I said and mean thank you very much. Perfectly valid description in the context of a game. Sheesh.

lol

I’ll have a double ‘meh’ on the rocks.

Lost interest after the demo. Fiddly and annoying.

Technically it’s really nice but I don’t agree with all the praise for the graphics. It looks a mess to me, too busy and garish. I generally love brightly coloured games but there’s no style to this.

Forgive me for not having read the full review – but the comments about fiddly or loose controls. Are these controls not a reflection of the vehicles you make? And, therefore, better vehicles handle with greater precision? Learning curve / reward and all that???

I played the demo yesterday and turned it off 5 minutes later. I got frustrated by the text which went way too fast to read. It also had the wrong colours to really read it in a relaxed way, my eyes started to hurt after the third line >.<

So yeah, I never got to the vehicle part :p

Shatner: Yes. The problem is that they don’t give you anything past the “shopping trolley” wheels in the demo… hence everything you get controls much like a shopping trolley.

@Shatner
It’s possible later vehicles are better to control, but certain vehicles are forced upon you for tasks and it they control like shite then that affects the fun. It’s about the vehicles being frustrating to control, not simply slower. Think of it the other way round – why should a game get easier as you progress because the vehicles get easier to handle?

The other factor in my cancelled pre-order was MS doing an Atari (TD:U) on the release. It’s more or less a budget release in the US but full price here.

I love the idea of the game and it’s possibly the best looking game this generation, so I’ll look at picking it up when it’s cheap in a sale.

damn! Why couldnt they just make a decent platformer .

I feared this.

Yeah, it’s pretty galling to know something is priced cheaper in the US. Makes you feel like mug if you pay full price.

Especially when it’ll be in the bargain bin by mid-December.

Yeah, I agree with that. Though of course, you could import it as it will be region free.

It’s not that I don’t feel like content wise it’s worthy of being full price. It’s just the principle of the thing.

I heard that it wasn’t region free (presumably down to the price differential).

Would be a first. All Rare games have been region free so far.

Golden Eye and Killer Instinct were AAA.

Not much else has been as good…

Psychotext, wish I’d bookamrked whatever that page was.

I rememeber predicting around the 80 mark

I think Rare are in a difficult position. They were clearly bought to make a particular style of game on a format that doesn’t welcome those games. It’s not like they can change their style as that would go against the very reason MS own them.

There’s no doubting the quality of their work but it all seems to be aimed an an audience that doesn’t really exist.

As I’ve said before, I think they could make their stuff fit more readily with the generic Xbox crowd quite easily just by changing their style a little. More Psychonauts, less Nintendo. They don’t have to lose their cartoony outlook (indeed, it’d be criminal if they did), just refine their art style and humour to bring it more into the 21st century and aim it squarely at the more adult audience.

I can imagine them doing stuff like Psychonauts quite easily. Or Maximo. Or Okami. You can do cartoony without fart gags and 8-bit sound effects. Viva Piñata’s style is a move in the right direction, but Banjo seems like a step backwards again.

But they are a tick box for MS. I’m sure if they were independent they would change their style to whatever the market demands in a shot.

They didn’t choose the cartoon style for the love of it originally. They just mimicked what Nintendo were doing and made a fortune.

Blerk…

CONKER!!

An unedited Conker, with a better art direction would be awesome. Fecal/sexual humour in a kiddies looking game works really well.

Don’t worry No_PUD, I have it bookmarked. Your predicted metacritic average was 84%… which I found a little high given your stated opinions of the game.

No, no, no. Conker is precisely the sort of thing they should be trying to move away from.

They should get them working on a LBP-a-like now that they’ve finished borrowing Nintendo’s Mii concept.

Don’t worry, as it’s a 360 exclusive, it’s sure to get 10 from EG.

What you guys complaining about 8.3 is a very good score!
If you turn down a game just based on scores then Jesus play it first!!
I wasn’t too hot about this game from the beginning but that doesn’t mean it won’t be any good.

Who’s complaining about the score?

I think more people were saying that they played the demo and didn’t like it rather than that they are now put off by the score.

I got as far as the first tutorial in the demo. As soon as I realised I was imprisoned within a forcefield being asked to do menial tasks for an annoying NPC, I switched off.

“I got as far as the first tutorial in the demo”

I turned it off about two minutes after that.

Probably the most annoying thing was not being able to skip the ‘dialogue’.

All I wanted to do was drive around a bit!

Psycho, try to discredit it as much as you want, I have best judgement of games right?

(until Team Xbox gave it a 78/79)

@Blerk, you played Conker right? The art direction indeed needs to (rather than grow up) be modernised, but taboo subjects in a kiddy game, makes it way less embarassing to play, and that taboo element can even make it cool for the Xbox crowd.

Speak for yourself. I thought Conker’s attempt at mature humour was pretty embarrassing.

Not sure what you’re trying to say Pud. I was confused because you don’t (didn’t?) think they game was going to be any good, but then you said that you thought it would get an 84% average.

I was joking anyway, just forgot a smiley. Sorry.

Well I guess an 80 mark isn’t bad, thats true. But I was accurate. And I knew what I meant.

I only played the N64 version of Conker, not the Xbox sequel. But I’m with John – the ‘humour’ is puerile. It isn’t adult at all, it’s the sort of stuff that kids in their early teens find funny. I’d certainly be embarrassed to play something like that these days.

Wasn’t there like tits and penises and poop involved?

(all of those are separate, we don’t want any 2girls1cup links)

Yeah. Which is exactly why it’s crap.

Hey man, I am pretentious too, but what about the mainstream, Gears of War fanbase.

It’s the whole reason GTA was a success, becuase of the taboo element.

Er… there’s quite a difference between GTA4′s humour and Conker’s.

I like to think GTA did well because it was a brilliant game. Sure the controversial content was a key element but you need more than that to create a success.

Yes GTA4, becuase thats when it went all self important and serious.

Past GTA’s, not so much.

Well eitehr way, a title like Conker with less infantile taboo content would certainly be good for Rare to do.

Don’t go the Insomniac route where you try to make an FPS becuase there’s a space in the market, they’ll make shit. Oh wait, PDZ…