Speedruns are all about risk and reward, as runners perform dangerous tricks in search of the best time. Cutscenes are usually a safe space where runners can relax before the next big skip. Unfortunately for one Banjo-Kazooie speedrunner, cutscenes aren’t always as safe as they seem.
You’ve spent a handful of hours scurrying around thick jungles, frozen snow fields, and gloopy swamps to find enough shiny gold book pages to complete Yooka-Laylee. But wait! The game wants you to collect even more. Thankfully, with some out of bounds trickery, you can ignore that and skip to the final boss.
Yooka-Laylee recaptures some of the best aspects of platforming. You run, jump, and climb your way around dazzling levels. But it also tries too hard to recreate the past without building upon the lessons old games taught us. We take a closer look in this critical video.
Yooka-Laylee is a bright and enthusiastic throwback to classic 3D platforming. It is adventurous and full of discoveries. It is silly and irreverent, never taking itself seriously. But it also wears out its welcome fast, spiraling players into a ceaseless collectathon full of frustrating puzzles, technical…
Yooka-Laylee captures all the good and bad of a Nintendo 64 platformer. It doesn’t just take the gameplay. It also takes the urban legends as well.
The bad news: Yooka-Laylee is delayed to 2017. The good news: It looks wonderful. New trailer above.
People poured money into a Kickstarter for a spiritual successor to the 1998 Nintendo 64 game Banjo-Kazooie. Why? Because Banjo-Kazooie was a wonderful game and no mere Mario 64 me-too, as some detractors claim.
Wahay! It’s hard to believe it’s been over 15 years since the magic of Banjo-Kazooie first graced the Nintendo 64. Who knew we’d still be looking back fondly on the musically entwined adventures of a bear and bird so many years later.
Before Banjo-Kazooie was Banjo-Kazooie, it was Dream, an RPG-adventure hybrid that might have been the best-looking Super Nintendo game ever made.
Rare games meant a lot to the people who played them, so a collection of 30 of (most) of their best works should mean a lot to children of the Spectrum ZX, the Nintendo 64 and even the Xbox 360 eras. Combined, they’re part of a new collection on the Xbox One that is one of the most extraordinary bundles to ever hit…
For about the last seven years, Grant Kirkhope has been trying to convince people in the gaming industry that it’s time to make a game similar to 1998’s Banjo-Kazooie, one of the great 3D platformers of the Nintendo 64 era. Says Kirkhope: “I was told: ‘Grant, you’re talking nonsense. No one wants this game.…
“I think Banjo-Tooie’s the better game.” So says Kotaku reader BlackmanFord in a series of comments below the chat we published yesterday celebrating Banjo-Kazooie. Read his thread for some Tooie love.
If Rare won’t make a new 3D platformer, the folks at Playtonic Games are happy to. Players seem eager to help out, as Yooka-Laylee has already blown past its original goal of $270,000.
Then this Unreal Engine 4 remake of Banjo's house (via DSOGaming) from the first game likely wouldn't have that graphical wow factor at all. Or the nostalgia.
The entire 164 track Banjo Kazooie soundtrack is available on Bandcamp. Ex-Rare audio maestro Grant Kirkhope put up the whole thing, which includes everything from level themes to cheerful, five-second victory chimes. You can name your price. Go revel in glorious bird/bear nostalgia and the happiest main theme ever.
Have some sweet Chrono Trigger tunes. Musician Blake Robinson, who previously released a musical tribute to Banjo-Kazooie, now did the same for Chrono Trigger. Clocking in at 40 minutes, the first volume features 23 orchestral tracks based on the music of Square's classic RPG. There's even a trailer!
In a world where a new ‘real life’ Mario YouTube clip is created every minute I feel the need to reward this attempt at creating a real life Banjo-Kazooie video. It might just be the nostalgia talking, but I found this hilarious. I also love that the creator managed to convince his Mum to play Gruntilda!
Banjo is a bear with a bird named Kazooie in his backpack. What is Banjo without Kazooie?
I like video game toys as much as the next guy. There are even a few toys out there that I'd be willing to pay money for. But twenty thousand dollars seems a bit high. And yet that's the price that this one-of-a-kind Banjo-Kazooie prototype figure is selling for on eBay right now.
My love for video games started when my dad bought a Super Nintendo home in the mid 90's. But as much fun as I had playing then, my young, impressionable brain was also scarred by a handful of gaming moments that left an indelible mark on my psyche. Even if those moments don't scare me anymore, I remember the first…
