Rare's Kameo slips yet again

By Kristan Reed Published 4 November, 2004

Two years on and Microsoft's $375 million deal for the UK studio is looking more expensive by the day...

Rare's long-awaited Xbox-exclusive Kameo: Elements Of Power has slipped indefinitely, with a statement on the developer's website revealing the firm's decision with publisher Microsoft to push back the launch of the title to make "several changes" to the game.

The full statement, posted late yesterday afternoon reads: "Here's one you didn't see coming! After a lot of thought and discussion, Rare and Microsoft Game Studios have decided to push back the launch of Kameo: Elements of Power in order to incorporate several changes and new features (some minor, some not so minor)."

It continued "We realise this is frustrating in the short term to all those of you avidly following the game's progress and itching to bust some Troll heads, and we can only apologise for keeping you in suspense, but rest assured that every last one of these new developments is designed to enhance and expand the overall experience. We want this to be the best game possible, so like any delays we may have instigated in the past (surely not) we have every confidence that this one will ultimately work out for the best. Stay tuned for further updates."

Like the Grolsch

1

We're all for developers not rushing out product before it's good enough, and Rare is in the luxurious position of being able to tweak, revise and hone every last line of code in order to make the game a classic. But on a business level, Microsoft bought Rare not as a R&D firm, not as a firm to release whimsical experimental projects but to make and release triple A blockbuster games that sell millions and to ultimately provide a return on that investment.

The chilling fact is that since the Redmond giant bought Rare in a blaze of publicity back in September 2002 for $375 million, the midlands-based company has actually released more Game Boy Advance titles than Xbox titles: two to one in fact, with the low-selling Sabre Wulf (which is a shame because it's excellent) and Banjo: Grunty's Revenge having been released in the last year, with only the virtually ignored Grabbed By The Ghoulies to show for its Xbox efforts.

And what of GBTG? Released in the run up to Christmas 2003, it was a cute, slick and somewhat under-rated beat 'em up set in a haunted house. Few critics really 'got the game', and muted reviews followed - the public, though, were even harsher on the game and all but a few Rare loyalists bothered. Either Microsoft was plain misguided or supremely arrogant to not see this coming, though. Rare had long lost its superstar status in the business since its '90s GoldenEye/ Donkey Kong heyday, and its last days at Nintendo weren't providing the hits of yesteryear. To believe a title as quirky as GBTG would succeed in the ruthless Christmas market was an incredible leap of faith, and not only did it fail, it tanked so badly that serious questions needed to be asked of Microsoft's entire Xbox development strategy.

Expensive luxuries

2

But yet here we are, another year on from that debacle (that fortunately for Microsoft passed without much comment from the industry), and another devastating blow for Microsoft Games Studios - with one of the jewels in its crown yet again demanding more time for a game that has already been redesigned from the ground up at least once since it was shown off in fully playable form back at E3 in 2003. We're getting into Duke Nukem Forever territory at this point - but at least 3D Realms funds itself.

It would also be interesting to find out what's become of Rare's other projects that have been ongoing and shown off in the past; namely Conker: Live and Reloaded. There's little evidence to suggest that this furry shooter is creating a buzz among gamers, while the enigmatic Perfect Dark Zero at this point, four and a half years on from the N64 original, will only be of interest to a determined hardcore audience. Whispers of a Sabre Wulf Racing title and a new Banjo-based title persist, but nothing has emerged from the ultra secretive Rare HQ. The sad fact is that it's more likely that we'll see another GBA title from Rare before we see another Xbox game. Next up on the schedule is in-joke title 'It's Mr Pants'. Another quirky THQ-published GBA game. Microsoft must be thrilled.

What must be worrying for Microsoft is that the return on its huge investment is not only paltry, but costing it more with every passing month. Whatever it paid for Rare, you can bet the running costs of a studio with Rare's headcount won’t come cheap. Pre-Microsoft, you could generally rely on Rare to produce at least one, maybe two big-name titles every single year. It seems an entire lifetime ago when Rare, as Ultimate Play The Game, managed to release four chart toppers a year for four years running. This author recalls the utter joy of playing Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Knight Lore and Underwurlde in one six month period in 1984. In the case of the latter game, an entire wall was taken up mapping this gigantic game out.

Those innovative, dewey eyed wonder-years are gone forever, but what we would give for just one Rare classic. Rare for art thou?

Picture of Kristan.

About Kristan Reed

Kristan is a former editor of Eurogamer, dad, Stone Roses bore and Norwich City supporter who sometimes mutters optimistically about Team Silent getting back together.

Read more articles from Kristan by visiting the Kristan Reed archive page.

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Comments (62) Latest comment 8 years ago

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  • bumgut #1 8 years ago

    Will Rare ever come out with a great game again?

    I may have missed something but all we have been getting since MS's acquisition is 75%-ers

    It troubles me that this is the company Microsoft is relying on to provide Xbox 2's launch title.
    Edited by bumgut at 04/11/04 @ 09:09

  • gizmo #2 8 years ago

    Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.

    Sounds to me like they're in trouble at a technical level. Methinks the talent left and Microsoft bought an expensive shell with a decent history.

    Surely some of that money could have been used to buy talent. I guess that obviously wasn't top of the list.

  • petebritish #3 8 years ago

    I remember watching the anouncement that they signed Rare and all the fanfare that went with it. I know Microsoft didn't expect to make too much money from the 1st XBox but to invest that amount for so little return is amazing. I just wonder if they got Rare confused with Rockstar? Now theres a company worth that sort of money!

  • Blerk #4 8 years ago

    I'll repost my forum comment for those who don't venture in there. :-)

    I have to say, I'm not even remotely surprised by this news. It's been on the cards so long that if they actually released it and it was anything less than 'stellar' it would be a complete embarassment. That said, the fact that they've delayed it yet again for an 'unspecified period' makes me wonder just how rubbish the game really is? They should just can it and have done with it. It's obviously never going to work.

    Microsoft really need to kick some arse round at Rare. For a company who are supposed to be the 'best the UK has to offer' and who came with a multi-million price tag, they certainly haven't gotten their money's worth. The whole thing's just been one huge catalogue of errors - Nintendo must be laughing their gonads off.

  • mad_caddy #5 8 years ago

    ah well it'll be done when it's done.

  • Blerk #6 8 years ago

    Which looks like it will be 'never'.

  • Teeth #7 8 years ago

    I think you're being pretty harsh to the developer here. That's a HELL of a lot of Rare-bashing for someone who isn't either on the development team or on the publisher end of things at Microsoft. These delays (and less than stellar games) could just as easily be due to Microsoft being arsy as a publisher.

  • Retroid #8 8 years ago

    Rare DOES have a bad rep as an environment from some places though.

    How many copes did GBTG actually sell, then?
    Edited by Retroid at 04/11/04 @ 09:54

  • krudster #9 8 years ago

    I think Microsoft has every *right* to be arsy as a publisher if the *best of the best* developer it bought churns out a game that's not good enough. I love Rare's games stretching back 21 years, but this episode is taking the piss.

  • krudster #10 8 years ago

    GBTG sold about 12,000 units here in the UK, probably about 50,000 across Europe. No idea about US.

  • Thamuhacha #11 8 years ago

    There could be so many reasons for these problems, but I find most of them hard to credit.

    Going from a notoriously difficult architecture (Gamecube) to a relatively simple one (Xbox) should (in theory) have allowed them to concentrate on design for any existing titles. MS would have pulled out all the stops to help them technically (and MS are pretty good at that anyway).

    So I agree with Blerk really, Rare look less and less capable all the time. The shame is that I am not convinced that Nintendo have invested the $375m very well. More Pokemon? ...

  • Killerbee #12 8 years ago

    I think you're being pretty harsh to the developer here. That's a HELL of a lot of Rare-bashing for someone who isn't either on the development team or on the publisher end of things at Microsoft. These delays (and less than stellar games) could just as easily be due to Microsoft being arsy as a publisher.

    Maybe so, but we judge developers by their results, don't we! What else is there to go on?

    The fact is that MS bought Rare in a blaze of publicity a few years back and they have subsequently produced nothing that lived up to the lofty expectations that were set back then.

    The "best the UK has to offer"? I bet Microsoft wish they'd spent a few million on a pre-GTA3 DMA Design four and a bit years ago...

    We all asked how Nintendo could let Rare go at the time - now we know.
    Edited by Killerbee at 04/11/04 @ 10:04

  • DB2k #13 8 years ago

    i thought this looked poor when it was originally demoed for the GC.. now its just a joke really..

  • Peekaboo #14 8 years ago

    "Going from a notoriously difficult architecture (Gamecube) to a relatively simple one (Xbox) should (in theory) have allowed them to concentrate on design for any existing titles. MS would have pulled out all the stops to help them technically (and MS are pretty good at that anyway). "

    I was always under the impression that the Cube was actually piss easy to develop for, atleast thats what people where saying in the Equip Special.....Not too mention in dev interviews on IGN. Perhaps the ArtX and Power PC architecture to Nvidia and x86 swap over is causing more headaches than anticipated. Or perhaps as I've thought ever since the 2nd half of PD that all the talent has left Rare a long time ago........

  • Killerbee #15 8 years ago

    Bungie - now there's an example of a good acquisition. Why? Because they had a game already in development that looked good and MS wanted it as an Xbox exclusive.

    Okay, it's easy to say this with hindsight, but you do have to wonder what it was that Microsoft thought they were buying in Rare in terms of marketable product. Games typically have a couple of years lead time, so the decision must surely have been made based upon what was in the pipeline. Or were they really just buying the reputation...?


    Edits: Gah! I can't type this morning...
    Edited by Killerbee at 04/11/04 @ 10:29

  • Royal Fool #16 8 years ago

    "GBTG sold about 12,000 units here in the UK, probably about 50,000 across Europe. No idea about US."

    Wow, that's horrible. I got it myself, it's really not that bad. But taking into account Rare's track record and the money Microsoft has spent so far on them.... daaaamn.

  • wattoo #17 8 years ago

    Top 5 UK developers anyone? Sod reputation, just results.

  • Blerk #18 8 years ago

    I don't think we're being too harsh on Rare at all. For a company to only produce one title in four years (is it?) only to have it sink into obscurity is bad enough, but when that company is supposedly at the top of the gaming tree you've got to wonder if it's time to revise that reputation. Microsoft paid a bundle for Rare to work on Xbox and what will they get out of it? One failure and a remake of an N64 game - not exactly a prolific resume for Rare, is it?

    What they should have done is begin with a 'clean slate'. When they bought Rare they should have scrapped everything currently in development and started again from scratch on projects that would match the Xbox's strengths rather than trying to shoehorn half-done Gamecube stuff into the new hardware. And quite what they were thinking allowing them to continue with the GBA games, I have no idea. They should've been in the bin for definite from day one.

  • Sko #19 8 years ago

    "...but don't forget the amazing games that Rare has given us all these years."

    As people have pointed out, they peaked - a long, long time ago - and have been going downhill ever since.

    I think I can understand Rare's reticence to put a game out though. Games (the cream of the crop, this is) have moved on from Rare's trademark gameplay/style and I imagine this, along with living up to their reputation is giving them cold-feet. They tried to do things 'their way' with GBTG and it just didn't score with the public.

  • Thamuhacha #20 8 years ago

    >Er, that's bollocks isn't it? The PS2 is a nightmare to write for, I thought the Cube was fairly accomodating.

    It might be! However, no one mentioned the PS2 ...

    And I thought that the cube was a bit of a bugger - not necessarily because of any hardware limitations but because Nintendo are bloody awful at supporting dev teams. Guess that probably didn't happen to rare because they were never 3rd party, really.

    Is there a developer in the house?

  • MonkeyMatters #21 8 years ago

    "Going from a notoriously difficult architecture (Gamecube) to a relatively simple one (Xbox) should (in theory) have allowed them to concentrate on design for any existing titles. MS would have pulled out all the stops to help them technically (and MS are pretty good at that anyway)."

    You are grossly misinformed thamahucha!
    The Cube is the easiest to develop for and has some excellent tools which makes it as simple as possible for the developer. You're thinking of the PS2!


    When MS bought Rare over from Nintendo, I was very worried; I loved the previous Rare stuff and was eagerly awaiting more from them for the Cube. But it seems that the Big N knew exactly what it was doing when they sold em off....they couldn't have had a better deal...must have been laughing their arses off all the way to the bank.

  • RedboX #22 8 years ago

    "Going from a notoriously difficult architecture (Gamecube) to a relatively simple one (Xbox) should (in theory)"

    The Gamecube is stupidly easy to develop for, and the Xbox is just a PC, the PS2 is the notoriously difficult architecture your thinking of here.


    "GBTG sold about 12,000 units here in the UK, probably about 50,000 across Europe. No idea about US."

    From what I gather Microsoft came to RARE with a new way of working called "deadlines", which is contary to RARE's usual "its done when its done" Microsoft seemed to think that GBTG whould be a nice experiment and said "theres your deadline, the game is finished then, and shipped". It could be that RARE are now using GBTG's sales as a reason to delay Kameo....



    Nintendo ditched RARE mostly because while thier output was good (tho getting quite samey), it was felt the deveopment cycle was taking far to long, and Nintendo wanted more games more often.

    As much as I have liked RARE's output over the years, I really dont think the Xbox is the platform for them, the Xbox has the most narrow demographic of the current generation of consoles, and for some players if it's not an FPS/military-based game, racing/killing game or a sports simulation then they don't want to know.



    Its also interesting to note that RARE's FGBA seem to be able to devlier on time, the Mr Pants game (I'm still not sure why they are releasing something based on such a weak IP) has been finished for a long time, and has been waiting for its shipping date.
    Edited by RedboX at 04/11/04 @ 11:21

  • Blerk #23 8 years ago

    I meant they should've scrapped the ideas, even. When they announced Rare were working on Xbox everyone screamed 'Perfect Dark Zero! Yeeeeeeeeeees!'. And as far as we can tell, they haven't made it - just a load of stuff that nobody was bothered about. Why didn't they just bin everything and all work on the one thing that everyone wanted?

    Standard disclaimer: When I say 'everyone' I don't mean 'everyone'. I for one would recoil in horror at the thought of more Perfect Dark and quite liked the look of Kameo, but it would appear that I am in the minority.

  • RedboX #24 8 years ago

    But Blerk, they DID scrapped the GC versions. Kameo, GBTG and the new Conker were built from the ground up for the Xbox."

    Well Kameo, GBTG were running on the Gamecube, infact the first xbox versions of Kameo that RARE were showing around still were using the Gamecube joypad on screen for its UI.

    The Conker update was never announced on the Gamecube, but development had started before the Nintendo split, so at somepoint some of it was running on the Gamecube, tho admitadly not much of it.

  • krudster #25 8 years ago

    The most depressing factor in all this is the bad publicity for the UK development scene. It reflects badly on the Uk as a whole when the likes of Argonaut go to the wall through a mixture of mismanagement and mediocrity, the rumblings at Codies, and now we're reminded that one of our supposed development stars is stuck in development hell, unable to get a product out despite huge resources.

  • Blerk #26 8 years ago

    Thank God for Rockstar North, eh? Even though everyone outside of Europe seems to think they're Americans.

  • Abscido #27 8 years ago

    "It would also be interesting to find out what's become of Rare's other projects that have been ongoing and shown off in the past; namely Conker: Live and Reloaded. "

    Got a chance to play Conker at a MS event a few months back. Surprised at how boring it all seemed, especially the multiplayer mode - though it was an early version, obviously.

    As for GBTG, I reviewed that for EG and stand by the 8 I gave it a year ago. But it was NEVER going to be a commerical success; in fact even had it come out on the N64 it probably wouldn't have appealed to many gamers of that era, nevermind Xbox gamers.

  • Teeth #28 8 years ago

    True; UK dev is dying horribly. Some of us are lucky to still have jobs
    Edited by Teeth at 04/11/04 @ 11:31

  • Truthsayer #29 8 years ago

    the Xbox has the most narrow demographic of the current generation of consoles

    Bilge.

  • Thamuhacha #30 8 years ago

    Apparently, the GC is very easy to develop for.

    I guess my mind still had the N64 roaming around - which was a bitch. Right?

    Anyway - Rare. Gone to the dogs. Britsoft is pear shaped. Bugger.

  • RedboX #31 8 years ago


    the Xbox has the most narrow demographic of the current generation of consoles

    Bilge.

    Care to expand on that? or are you trolling?

  • RedboX #32 8 years ago

    Indeed, Kameo was running on the GC at the first showings. BUT, later on the initial version was scrapped and it was developed from the ground up on the Xbox.

    Well, It cant of been that ground up when seemingly so many gamecube assets showing up inthe first xbox build.

    Without access to the source code for both I guess we will never know one way or the other, but considering how a certain delveloper I know uses routines he orginialy wrote for the Atari ST in his PS2 code I suspect it was not totaly ground up, programers are lazy like that!

  • krudster #33 8 years ago

    Well, it's just sad all round. I started playing games when literally dozens of British devs ruled the non console scene, with so much talent around it was staggering. I think the back bedroom coding scene of old suited the British mentality; small tight teams bursting with ideas and
    innovation - and more importantly quality, and churning stuff out so fast you'd barely even heard that work on a game had started and it was out. That sort of ideas factory was how Rare got its reputation in the first place. It was an incredibly exciting time.

    Most of those guys I've spoken to since just can't seem to work in the big teams demanded these days, and I can't say I'm surprised that the corporate ethics imposed on them results in nothing but failure.

  • Thamuhacha #34 8 years ago

    That's a good point Krudster,

    The old "work hard play hard" bedroom programmer is a world away from what is really required now.

    One of the problems with the oft-touted comparisons with the film industry is that we simply don't have a market for "art-house" games. Every single one is built on "blockbuster" grounds, and many teams found this hard to adapt to as the increasing power (and involvement) of publishers took over.

    The talent is still very much there in the UK (and Europe) but without a change in working practices, we see these recent problems.

  • Blerk #35 8 years ago

    In a way I think we need to see a return of the old 'budget game' market that used to exist in the 8-bit days. Small, often innovative games thrown together on a shoe-string budget in a short amount of time by a handful of people, then released at a price which encourages impulse-buying. Sony, Microsoft et al. should be encouraging this sort of thing as a route into the industry - start small, work your way up to bigger teams as you get more experienced.

    With online becoming the norm and next-gen consoles all (possibly) having hard drives, it would be fantastic to see companies allowing and encouraging 'homebrew' development - something like Sony's old NetYaroze scheme but available to anyone who buys a kit and is online. Titles could be downloaded to your local machine for a few quid from an official site. It'll never happen, though - they're only after the 'big bucks'.

    Edit: rogue 'of'
    Edited by Blerk at 04/11/04 @ 12:17

  • Abscido #36 8 years ago

    "One of the problems with the oft-touted comparisons with the film industry is that we simply don't have a market for "art-house" games. Every single one is built on "blockbuster" grounds."

    For me, one of the key issues here is the struggle between the narrative/cinematic aspects of modern games and their core gameplay. In the past, *gameplay* dictated how attached you got to certain characters; Mario never had much of a personality, but his world and gameplay endeared him to us. So even an apparently silly premise like the Lost Viking games had the leeway to become fun because of the gameplay. In a way, you put more of your *own* imagination into these games and they became more personal as a result.
    Now, however, it's much harder to appreciate what might be decent gameplay underneath an ugly layer of poorly conceived, terribly executed aesthetics. It's much harder to get *both* aspects right now, yet developers rarely have the backing to concentrate entirely on one or the other.

  • pjmaybe #37 8 years ago

    Nice idea Blerk, in fact a couple of studios have already tried this but with little or no impact on the market. If a major publisher did a budget range and licenced a few titles from homebrewers (f'r instance imagine if EA saw sense and purchased the licence to a few games like Bontago and sold 'em for a tenner each on major formats, they'd surely make a lot of money whilst bringing something other than the usual mainstream shite to a wider audience)

    Peej

  • Teeth #38 8 years ago

    I had an idea the other day. One might start a company that acted as a medium between the hardware manufacturers (suppliers of development kits, crucially), and small independent teams who wish to create small, budget console games. These games would them be sent to said company, operating mainly through the Web, who would manufacture the game discs etc and take a cut of profits made from selling the products at budget prices via mail order.

    So indies could say OK, I want to make a console game, but I don't have the money for a dev kit. They then go to this website, maybe put some deposit down and get hold of a dev kit, develop their game and have it sold dead cheap. Then joe public goes to the site, sees these nice little games going for next to no money, and yums them up. Everyone's happy.

  • sickpuppysoftware #39 8 years ago

    the enigmatic Perfect Dark Zero at this point, four and a half years on from the N64 original, will only be of interest to a determined hardcore audience

    I seem to remember another FPS years on from it's mac original managing to appeal to non-hardcore players ;o)

  • krudster #40 8 years ago

    Don't read anything into the Codies comment - that's just based on the number of people that appear on these threads and talk of problems there - mainly based on alleged QA lay-offs (which were temps anyway, we hear), and the canning of Dragon Empires, loss of the Snooker license to SEGA, lower sales of CMR 05 etc etc.

  • savant #41 8 years ago

    Teeth - funnily enough Microsoft were doing something similar to this with their incubator programme in the early days of the Xbox (I don't know whether it's still going). You'd pitch your game to them and assert your enthusiasm about it and the abilities of your team. If they liked what they saw, they'd fund development and supply you with kit.

    I think the bedroom coding days are still with us with Flash games, certain smaller PC titles like Trackmania and the Xbox freeware scene (XBMC MAMEoX and the rest). It's a shame that the legitimate console environment is so closed and well guarded though.

  • ZeTimbo #42 8 years ago

    savant - don't forget XGameStation and the GP32 - both key "bedroom coder" platforms...

  • Zero Beat #43 8 years ago

    I'm saddened that so many people have so much negativity towards a company that hasn't released any poor games and is putting a lot of effort into releasing two excellent games next year.

    'Someone' is just taking the piss saying Kameo has nothing special graphically or gameplay wise. Take a gander at TeamXbox's gameplay videos and you should see something really quite exciting. The graphics are easily in Xbox's top five best looking games so that's utter nonsense.

    Conker's had a very positive response from the (unfortunately) shooter orientated Xbox crowd in America. IGN's run a lot of coverage and people seem to be drawn to the Halo 2 matching or even beating visuals in single player, humour and *groan* XBOX LIVE play! Those two words seem to excite people that don't even have Live, it's gotta have Live.

    Class based gameplay in third person is new to me and if they can nail the vehicle physics so they all feel unique like Halo's rather than all being no friction floaty pieces of crap like UT2004's, I'll be in heaven.

    I loved Grabbed by the Ghoulies too. Superb graphics, wonderful controls, the best menu presentation ever, amusing, happy characters, sound and music. If GbtG doesn't make you grin, what's wrong with you?

  • Grom #44 8 years ago

    hope they redesign the gruesome main character. The monsters look nice though.

  • Zero Beat #45 8 years ago

    Indeed, I agree that Kameo's character model still looks out of place. Her face especially is much too Barbie doll-like and joints just look a bit daft so thin. Not as obvious ingame rather than looking at a high res render but I hope they redesign her.

  • RedboX #46 8 years ago

    I have allways enjoyed RAREs output from the SNES days onwards, I also enjoyed some of thier spectrum games tho being a C64 owner at the time I never got to play that many of them.

    Thier early N64 titles were truely amazing the pinicle of thier output bieng Blast Dozer and Goldeneye, two games that still get regular play to this day. not to mention Diddy Kong Racing which got more play than Mario Kart 64 ever did at my house.

    Towards the end of their N64 days a lot of thier output was getting very samey, Banjo, Banjo 2, DK64, JFG and even Conker were all very simular platform games, all excelent games but still nothing in the inovation stakes, the one thing that kept me playing was the plot and the humor.

    Starfox Adventures carried on this tradition (orignaly it started life as a N64 game called <a href=http://ign64.ign.com/objects/014/014516.html>Dinosaur Planet</a> which from playing at E3 seemed very JFG-ish to me) and was for the most part boring as there was very little of the trademark Rare humor in evidance, and quite a lot of going back and forth to collect ever more gems and what have you.

    Grabbed by the Ghoulies was more like RARE games of old with a high humor content and lots of references to old RARE games/characters, however by design it was never going to suceed with the Xbox's demographic, and to be honest I did at times find it a chore to play, as the game went on it seemed to get very repative with little variation to the monsters/levels. I've still not completed it I was palying it at the weekend, nearly finished tho, I'm at the fight with the Barron.

    I am looking forward to Conker & Kameo I will certianly be buying both of them, but I'm not really sure how many others will.

  • AOFanboi #47 8 years ago

    Fable underwhelming, True Fantasy Online canned, Kameo indefinitely delayed. Plus, next generation will not be backward compatible.

    Death of the XBox predicted.

  • Machiavel #48 8 years ago

    I think Rare hitched their skirts to Nintendo's design for too long - after the Blast that was Blast Corps and Goldeneye, it all seemed to be "Nintendo releases great game; Rare releases pretty but slightly vacant copy of same"

    Mario - Banjo Kazooie/Donkey Kong 64
    Zelda - Starfox Adventures
    Luigi's Mansion - Grabbed by the Ghoulies (well it is, isn't it)

  • gamingdave #49 8 years ago

    Homebrew games really should be more widly available. Sure theres a scene on the GP32 and internet games, but how many people get to play these (ok nearly everyone can play flash/java games, but over a pc, not infront of the tv with a joypad. Surely with the next gen it should be totaly feasable for someone to make the equivelent of shoot-em-up-construction-kit and similar. Im not talking about massive renderware style products, but simple enough tools with decent power.

    Im a flash developer and have made games in the past. Once you know how to use it its vey simple but yet powerful (for 2d games). The only real limitation is processing power. If Macromedia could come up with a player for next gen machines, that supported joystick input, id definately be dabling. Simple games for simple prices could be instantly at the hands of developers and consumers. Not everything has to be in 3D with pro voice actors and hrs of cutscenes.
    Edited by gamingdave at 04/11/04 @ 14:09

  • sheepfish #50 8 years ago

    Kristan: "Rare for art thou?"

    An amusing play on words, but the literal translation is 'why' are you Romeo, not 'where' are you Romeo. As in, Juliet musing on the fact her love for Romeo is doomed because of the family feud.

    I'm sure you needed to know that.

  • RedboX #51 8 years ago

    "Nintendo ditched RARE mostly because while thier output was good (tho getting quite samey), it was felt the deveopment cycle was taking far to long, and Nintendo wanted more games more often."

    Well that didn't exactly work out did it? The last AAA Nintendo titles I bought were Metroid Prime and Wind Waker.

    Ah yes, you spotted the irony there, Nintendo have been promoting a "shorter games, more often" idealoigy that whould allow them to bump up thier game count, but I've not really seen many signs of this incrase in productivity.

  • malloc #52 8 years ago

    I think Nintendo have ditched the shorter and more games policy fairly quickly as it did poorly. SMS and WW were good games, but SMS had very tough extras to make up for an unfinished game and WW missed some dungeons and had Link collecting money to pay for map translation. Similar with Pikmin.

    Nintendo aren't doing this anymore, as reviews of Pikmin 2 point out, and they seem to be taking their time with the likes of LoZ, Mario 128, Star Fox, Geist so as not to fall into the same trap.

  • malloc #53 8 years ago

    Rare also did Diddy Kong racing, Blast Corps, Perfect Dark, Conker, Killer Instinct and had quite a history of being successful with Nintendo. They also had quite a history of taking ages to release games. Shame things went pear-shaped and only appear to have gotten worse. Nintendo would be quite dominant now if they had Rare on top form.

  • Zero Beat #54 8 years ago

    I've seen enough screenshots and videos of games, then played the results in my time to know how a game is going to end up looking 'Someone'.

    I find it hard to believe anyone expected Killzone to be as crisp as its screenshots and that the blur filter would be so effective for things in motion.

  • Ultimatum #55 8 years ago

    JP, Rare's reputation also comes from the fact that they used to be Ultimate "back in the day". And they made some frikkin great games.
    Goldeneye was great, you're wrong about that, Diddy Kong Racing was also ace.
    So they used to be good. I think the point people are making about Rare is that they arent any good now, which I would agree with.
    Edited by Ultimatum at 04/11/04 @ 15:26

  • krudster #56 8 years ago

    Ultimate, at their 83-85 peak were pretty much the most prolifically brilliant developer ever. Even now, games like Atic Atac, Jetpac and Pssst! stand up today. The more ambitious ones, like Sabre Wulf and Knight Lore were too fascistly difficult, but for their era were lightyears ahead.

  • nick_f Verified Senior Producer, Microsoft #57 8 years ago

    Kameo has almost definitely been pushed onto Xbox 2. I heard that M$ will stop production of the original Xbox in March and any first/second-party titles that can't make it out by then *cough* BC *cough* have been canned or pushed back to Xbox 2.

  • spindizzy #58 8 years ago

    I never "got" Atic Atac, but Jetpac ... that was a *great* game! I'd happily play that again on my mobile, if only for nostalgia reasons. Didn't they make TransAm as well? (okay, I could look it up on the internet but that'd be cheating somehow)

  • rocketScience #59 8 years ago

    Yes they made TransAm, I didn't like the pale background, black worked better for them on spectrum.

    I would definitely buy an updated top-down view pseudo3D Atic Atac. For a while I thought that's what GBTG would be, but it was apparently more of a puzzle game.

  • chronom4n #60 8 years ago

    ha,ha,ha,ha! shows monies can't buy everything!

  • Teeth #61 8 years ago

    nick_f - I heard that too.

  • Mugwum Verified Operations Director, Eurogamer Network #62 8 years ago

    For anybody wondering why this rose to the top again today, we're not rubbing it in, I'm just wrestling with article priority tags after a week away :-)