Metareview -- Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (360)

But wait, I thought Eurogamer was supposed to be teh bias towards the 360? Yet, they gave both Gears 2 and Banjo some of the lowest scores compared to what everyone else gave them.

I'm buying it on Day 1, but going by the demo, I'm mostly inclined to agree with the Eurogamer review.
I like all the individual elements of the game, but it's not a platformer. It seems like they threw players a few bones in Showdown Town, but that's as far as it apparently goes. I liked everything else about the game...humor, style, atmosphere, music, controls...but it just isn't clicking in the gameplay department.
Also, the character jibberish-speak. Don't like it. It's...different. Like it's more muted now or something. I'm probably the only person who will ever be bothered by that, though.

Part of this is my fault. I kinda can't get past the fact that it's so different from the first two. I had my heart set on certain expectations and that isn't what was delivered.

So far, it's a game that I'm trying REALLY hard to like, but it just aint' coming together for me.

I tried the demo this morning, SO FUCKING AMAZING!

I'm giving the Eurogamer review a 5/10 for being so poorly written. That second sentence quoted above is a convoluted mess.

Paid off my reserve a few days ago. Very excited and can't wait to get my hands on it and the original.

The MSRP really is $39.99 then eh?

Usually that's a bad sign in a way, but I enjoyed the demo (from what I played), and enjoyed the original on N64. I was on the fence about this, but that price makes it tempting.

second sentence? what second sentence? i saw one sentence then a long paragraph with a bunch of commas.

this was supposed to be a reply to Vidikron.

I'm really starting to wonder about 1Up, or perhaps just Anthony Gallegos (who reviewed this and Viva 2).

He's coming in way above the curve. And in the case of Viva 2 (something I can speak better to than this, since I down that and have over 50 hours into it), he's made a lot of mistakes.

He says everything's been smoothed out? The "handful" of annoying and tedious actions is fixed now? Then why am I still having to go through 2 "please wait" transitions to buy a Pinata house?

Then there's stuff that's wrong that they didn't fix. Why if I select a pinata that has just walked out of the house and lead it somewhere does it not do it? You have to wait not only until it's selectable, but then another 5 seconds before giving a command or it will be ignored.

Why can I still tell certain pinatas (Tafflys for example) to eat a candy or flower right next to them, and they will then rise up and circle it forever, unable to reach it because their turning radius in flight is too large to be able to get there? It should have just walked there in the first place, as it was right next to it (Tafflys can walk, and in fact do so as the last bit of travel before eating a candy).

And the biggest, why if I click on a pinata that is roaming outside my garden that I want, does it show the resident criteria I need to meet for it when the next criteria I need to meet is the VISIT criteria so it will walk into my garden? If I want to look at this I have to press Y at that first screen, which brings up a load screen, then in an encyclopedia I have to select the visit panel manually. This kind of error makes it a lot tougher for young kids to play this game.

Why is it if I want to look up pinata that isn't resident I have to go to the encyclopedia (a load screen and several clicks), then if it is late in the alphabet, I have to switch pages perhaps 7 times, each page turn taking 8 seconds or so? God save you if the pinata's name comes after "S" (as that puts it near the back page, being behind even the sours). It shouldn't be that I've had to memorize a bag of tricks to figure out how to view a pinata entry more quickly.

how to:
1. select a pinata that depends on it in the garden, then go to the encyclopedia for that, then select the pinata in question from its list of requirements.
or (if that isn't possible)
2A. If it is a low-level pinata, go to the pinata rewards list, as it is sorted by level, you can find it by paging 5-8 seconds at a page to the pinata.
2B. If it comes near the front alphabetically, go to the pinata encyclopedia list, as it is sorted alphabetically, you can find it by paging 5-8 seconds at a page to the pinata.
3. If it's a high level pinata with a high initial letter (like perhaps a Sarsgorilla), you're just boned. It's gonna take you about a minute to look it up.

Oh, and if you want to check on a pinata in your garden and see what awards you have for it (appear, visit, breed, master breed, variants), you MUST go to the awards list, 2B (and most importantly, #1, the only fast one) isn't available to you.

Oh, and another small one, but one I can't imagine how Rare missed (let alone Anthony), when an egg is to be delivered to a house and there is already an egg there (waiting to hatch), the game puts up the message "house removed". Which is ridiculous, the house is right there. If you select it says something like "Storkos has an egg to deliver but the house it is to be delivered to has been removed, better replace it or this egg won't be delivered". When the house is right there, it just has an egg in front of it already. This is again confusing to younger people and easily could have been fixed.

So this guy gives a Rare game that amounts to a bit more than a "track pack" an A (100), so I'm very nervous about his A- (93) for another Rare game. It's too bad, because I want to trust 1UP.

Tiny text = no buy for me. Sorry Rare, not everyone has an HDTV. Get with it

I had my doubts as well, but once I played the demo it's become a must-have.

I don't think the reviewers gave the game enough credit. It's incredibly innovative, and if it's not the first, it's the best vehicle-based platform/puzzle game ever made.

Id say Rare is out of touch.. But this aint Rare, everybody who made Rare what it was has already moved on.

Nega-reviews are the only reviews I trust any more