At first it all seems like familiar territory, only much, much prettier. The hub world, Showdown Town, is typical Rare – a lush, bustling area filled with strange characters, cute animals and oh-so-British humour. It’s tough not to raise a smile as you wander round reacquainting yourself with Banjo, his birdy buddy and the cast of familiar faces making a comeback from the older titles. In fact, there’s so much beautiful detail you could spend hours on exploration alone. As the title suggests, Nuts & Bolts is more about tinkering with vehicles than leapingacross platforms collecting brightly coloured ephemera.
Rare are keen to encourage a creative approach to each task, so the wealth of customisation options it throws at you can seem intimidating at first. Even the most creative gamer will craft a few duds to start with as they get to grips with the way the vehicle mods interact with Nuts & Bolts’ surprisingly solid physics system. Each task comes with its own pre-built machine, courtesy of chop-shop owner Mumbo, for anyone who doesn’t want to experiment too much, but using these stock vehicles feels like cheating.
The demo came with several ready-made machines, but when you’re starting the game from the beginning, you’ll be given basic kit to work up from. Soon you’ll be piloting hovercraft, helicopters, hang-gliders and more. The key is to construct vehicles specific to each task, so for the one that requires you to score a specific amount of goals with an oversized football, it’s better if you use a maneuverable car with some kind of large bucket to control the ball. Need to knock over a table full of giant dominos? We recommend a plane with a large wingspan that can topple as many as possible. There are literally hundreds of options for every challenge, and once you’ve had your own ‘Eureka!’ moment after inventing a devastatingly effective vehicle, you’ll be hooked on Nuts & Bolts.
Even after this brief taster of the new Banjo-Kazooie, we feel both familiar with the gameplay and hungry to be left alone with it for some quality tinkering time. It may not be the Mario-worrying platformer you remember fondly thanks to those thick, rose-tinted specs, but from what we’ve seen, that’s no bad thing. We’re loving Banjo’s new creative direction almost as much as his shiny, free-flowing next gen fur. Building vehicles like crazy Meccano sets feels odd at first, but once you get to grips with it, Nuts & Bolts’ DIY gameplay could be your new favourite pastime.
Sep 9, 2008
