You scream and everybody comes

I have another short post today. I know it may seem like I’m getting bored of this whole post-a-day thing, but that’s only because I absolutely am.

Wait. That came out wrong.

What I meant to say, was that I’ve been mostly out of this for so long that it’s hard to remember that I need to make a post every day, and especially over the weekend, I haven’t been getting to the computer before about 11:30 PM. And Saturdays, of course, I’m only home between the time I wake up and go to work half an hour later, so my Saturday posts have to be done after midnight on Friday night. It’s tough balancing this with everything, but the fact that I didn’t even sign on to do an entire month really helps. 24 days didn’t sound too bad, and knowing there’s only 16 left is even better. What isn’t good, is that I only have 16 shopping days left, and I haven’t even started. Fuck Christmas.

Oh! That image makes me feel better! Since Monday is cause for miscellany in ol’ review world, today I will talk about one of my favouritest treats ever: the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory’s frozen chocolate-covered cheesecake – on a stick! I pretty much love everything I’ve had at Rocky Mountain (black forest fudge in particular), but the frozen chocolate-covered cheescake is magical. I love cheesecake more than almost any other food – junk or otherwise – in the world, and slathering it in chocolate and freezing it does something incredible that makes it even better. It also goes without saying that all the best foods come on a stick, so that alone is a win.

The only downside, ironically, is the stick. It’s made of some kind of horrible, very tasty (in the sense that it has a strong taste) wood. This is not a good taste. Not at all. It’s kind of like licking a two-by-four, but without the splinters. Most things with a something inside have a delicious something in there. This cheesecake on a stick decidedly does not. Not a deal-breaker by any stretch, but it is a little inconvenient. Otherwise, the cheesecake on a stick is the greatest invention man has ever inventioned, and I champion Rocky Mountain for being the only place I know where I can find it. If you know somewhere else that sells a cheesecake on a stick, then by God, man! Why haven’t you told me!?

Doodly ding-dong tick-tock

On Sunday, I will review games from the various download services on current generation video game consoles. Today is Sunday! Here’s one of my favourite games that recently appeared on the Wii’s Virtual Console.

Don’t recognise it? It’s Super Dodgeball! One of the greatest NES games ever made. I really don’t feel like making a huge post out of this, mostly because I’m lazy, but also because it’s a really simple game. It’s just fucking dodgeball. But it’s so damn fun! So yeah, if you’re really interested in knowing more, go find a NES emulator and the ROM. I swear you’re in for a wondeful time.

Pull me under

It’s TV time! Yeah. This one’s actually been the hardest to find things for, but I think I’ve pretty much got it wrapped up. I only really have to do three for the whole month, so despite my difficulty in finding things that not everyone already watches (or more importantly, that I haven’t discussed in the past), I’ve made some selections that I think are pretty good.

Actually, I think this one is totally the balls. And I’m pretty sure anyone who is anyone watches it does too, but that’s besides the point. The Venture Bros. is far and away my favourite [adult swim] program (Metalocalypse taking a close second), and for a short while was my favourite show on TV. Actually it was a span of about 7 months, so I’d say that’s pretty significant. My point of view pretty much comes out to: if you don’t like this show, fuck you.

Alright, maybe I’m not so into it that I’d slander those who don’t share my opinion, but I do love the show. If by some random chance you’ve never seen it, I would suggest you get right on that. I know that a lot of stuff I like isn’t great but I love it anyway due to personal tastes, but The Venture Bros. is a fantastic show, and that’s a fact.

The show is sort of a parody on the boy adventurer genre of decades past, drawing inspiration mostly from things along the lines of Jonny Quest. That’s not to say that it doesn’t spoof other things. In fact, I’m pretty sure that every episode contains at least one “Star Wars” reference, and one of my favourite episodes is a complete takeoff of Scooby-Doo. The show has its own sense of humour too, not relying solely on pop culture references to sell itself.

Each main character is totally fleshed out, and most of them are completely batshit insane in one way or another. Our heroes Hank and Dean Venture are teenaged boy adventurers, dealing not only with the streses of villains constantly trying to kill them, but also the awkwardness of growing up. Not to mention that they’re usually totally oblivious to everything that matters. Their father, Dr. Venture, is a failed super-scientist getting by only with all the inventions his own father left behind. He’s neurotic, quick to anger, and his arch-nemesis is a man dressed as a butterfly. The doctor’s bodyguard, Brock, is voiced by Patrick Warburton and therefore is awesome by default. And let’s not forget the gigantic supporting cast, each more hilarious than the last!

I don’t think I should really need to try any harder to sell you on this one. If you own any ANY television DVDs at all, these two sets should damn well be in there. I just really wish I had the friggin’ Cartoon Network so that I wouldn’t have to wait until January to see the third season episodes. Hell, the fact that there exists a third season (and fourth even!) makes me all tingly inside. Highly recommended.

Empty yo pockets!

Eff this. These 24 days of bullshit is bullshit.

At least that’s what I feel like saying. When I comitted myself to this project, I kind forgot that some days I don’t even see my home, nevermind my computer, so yeah. But I shall forge on! Today, reviewing a movie of my choosing. And my choice is a great new-ish monster movie titled “The Host”.

When talking to people, I often described “The Host” as a small-scale “Cloverfield”. Thinking about it now, I don’t think I could really be more wrong. The only thing the two movies have in common is the moster element and the fact that the basic plot is one person looking for a loved one. Other than that, not really the same at all. Even a little.

The plot to this movie, as it were, revolves around a man and his daughter. Also his other immediate family (siblings and father), but they’re just support characters. They’re living a pretty standard (if a little poor) life when one day a monster emerges from the nearby river and starts eating the shit out of people. It spies Main Character’s Daughter, and goes after her. Main Character witnesses his daughter devoured whole and vows to go after the creature. The twist is that the moster does not actually eat the girl, but rather brings her back to its hidey-hole for later snacking. And the story more or less just has the guy hunting the beast, and the girl fighting to stay alive.

The thing to note here is that this movie is originally Korean (I’m pretty sure). From this fact, we can extrapolate that the voices we hear speaking are not the actual voices of the characters. On this note, I would like to mention that the dubbing is very, very bad. Hilarious bad at times. The kind of bad that sort of makes the movie more enjoyable. Once scene that has all the family mouning the loss of Main Character’s Daughter in particular is so ridiculous that I could not keep my composure and broke out laughing. Only after the fact did I truly pity how bad it really was.

Sketchy dubbing aside, I agree with the media blurbs on the cover, and think that “The Host” is a wicked awesome monster movie. Or at least as wicked awesome as a modern monster flick can be. The creature itself is way way cooler than the “Cloverfield” beast by all stretches of the imagination (the lack of massive hype helped), even though it’s many times smaller. It’s fast, ferocious, and pretty much all-out cool. It’s kind of like a big, pissed-off fish with a taste for blood. And it shows up on screen a lot! Unlike the Mr. I-Want-To-Remain-Mysterious “Cloverfield” monster. Sadly, there aren’t a lot of quality screencaps of the thing, but here’s a decent one.

Yeah, I know. Awesome. I seriously want one. Except without a penchant for snacking on humans. That part might work against me. But anyway, I hear that they’re doing an American remake, and I wholly expect that one to suck ass, but if you go out and get the original version of “The Host”, I doubt you’ll be disappointed. It’s not super-heavy on depth or anything, but it’s a fun watch with a sympathetic plot. Without spoiling anything, I’ll also mention that it doesn’t have exactly the happiest of endings. But yes, totally recommended. In fact, writing this makes me want to watch it over again. Now if only I could find some time to sit down and watch a movie. Maybe I can convince the woman to watch it…

Emptiness and everlasting madness

Thursday is the day that I’ve chosen to use for reviewing reading material. Books, if you will. This might come as a shock to those of you who know me better, as I’m not known as the most avid reader around. I’m almost going to be late on my deadline here too, so let’s get this bitch movin’!

Ha ha ha. Oh Ryan, you so cheap! Yeah, I know, it’s not really reading material, but it’s in the form of a book, so it counts! And this is pretty much the kind of thing you’re going to see when I review books, so get useded to it.

Moving on, I’m touting the Penny Arcade books not because of the comics inside. No, if that was all I was after, I’d just read the website. It’s not like they’ve got a bunch of book-only strips or anything, so it’s all good. No, the real gold here is the extra commentary that goes along with every comic. They’re usually hilarious, and surprisingly often more funny than the comic strip it’s describing. I’ve had a hard time not lawling while reading these books, and that says a lot. And I only have the first two volumes!

The other extra material -namely the forewords and bonus art galleries- are also totally worth buying the books for. If you’re into that kind of thing, I mean. There’s some really spectacular artwork hidden in the backs of these volumes, and while it’s sometimes hard to appreciate for the common man, someone who spends a good amount of his time doodling (like myself) will truly enjoy it. I guess there isn’t much else to say about that then. If you don’t like PA (you monster), then you most likely won’t like the for-monies editions. The commentaries might strike a chord that the comics don’t, I don’t know. The bottom line here would be that if you like dick jokes, buy these.

I’m doing fine

Day three, still doing good. Granted, I still have 21 more to go, but for 2008, posting three days in a row is a huge improvement. If I need to refresh your memory on what category I’m working on today, it’s music! I can imagine everyone groaning at that one. Yes, I know hearing me talk about music is boring. I’m sorry, but it’s something I have to do! I have bills to pay and mouths to feed!

Ah, been a while since I’ve said anything about Jimmy Eat World. Though really, I guess it makes sense. Up until last week, I never owned any of their CDs but Futures, and that I barely ever listened to. Well, I started listeneing to it again a while back, right around the last time I went to Grand Forks. Thought it would be something good to put on the iPod to make my playlist a little more girlfriend-friendly.

Other than that, they were really put out of my mind though. But when I started playing Rock Band 2 and Guitar Hero: World Tour, the tides changed just a little bit. If you weren’t aware, JEW’s biggest single, “The Middle”, is in both games. Back in the day it was real popular-like, and I was one of those hipster kids who shunned stuff that got popular like that, so I wrote it and the band off. Futures worked for me because it was so different and emo-tastic, but other than that I would never say I was a huge JEW fan. But plastically strumming along to the song, I found myself enamored of it, and decided to check out the rest of their work. So I downloaded the Jimmy Eat World discography. Now hold your pitchforks, download haters, there’s more to the story.

I quickly fell for Bleed American (features “The Middle”), and then I gave their newest disc, Chase This Light, a spin. Digitally. The short version is that I loved it right away. It turns out that the title track was actually being piped in through TRU’s satellite radio, and I loved that song but had no idea who it was (despite the fact that Jim Adkins has a very noticable voice).

In the here and now, I’m not as crazy about the album, but I’ve actually gone out and paid cash moneys for it, so that says something about how much I still like it. It’ll never have the profound effect on me that Futures did, but that was a different time, and I was a slightly different person. To be a little more descriptive, Chase This Light is a lot more poppy than Futures, and it doesn’t have even half the depth of the latter album, but it’s still a great listen, and I’m pretty sure that most people with open musical tastes would welcome it into their music collection with open arms, were they to receive it as a certain holiday gift. Yes, that means I recommend it. How often do I review things that I don’t recommend? Pretty much never. Especially not during the most wonderful time of the year.

I laugh to myself

I went ahead and banged out a sort of “Materialism Matrix” just now, and I have pretty much the entire month’s worth of blog posts planned out. There are a few days that could use a little more thought, or things that should probably be fleshed out into full articles, but at least I have a rough draft of what I’m going to be working on for the next twenty-odd days. Also, each day has a set “theme,” which are as follows:

  • Monday – Whatever
  • Tuesday – Video Games
  • Wednesday – Music
  • Thursday – Reading
  • Friday – Movies
  • Saturday – TV
  • Sunday – VC/WiiWare/XBLA

So then, being as it’s Tuesday, I guess we’re in store for a short review of a video games of some sort. Hmmmm… I think that today, we’ll take a look at Castelvania Judgement, a fighting game starring a host of popular CV characters.

Yeah, I know. You don’t have to tell me that this is a very bad idea. We all remember the diaster that was Ehrgeiz. The difference would be that the Castlevania franchise doesn’t exactly have all the retards of the gaming world by the balls like Final Fantasy VII did (and sadly, still does). But hey, with the promise of finally having a chance to reverse the roles and beat down some Belmonts with the almighty Dracula, who could refuse?

To tell the truth, Judgement does bring on flashbacks of Ehrgeiz. They’re painful, but then I realize I don’t have to suffer through any appearances by that douche Sephiroth, and I feel a little better. Also, I realize that it’s much more polished and actually playable, then I stop convulsing and start playing. That isn’t to say that Judgement is good. Oh no. It’s a half-assed game, but it’s kinda neat and has a lot of features. The main attraction being beating the snot out of randomly chosen opponents one by one like every other fighting game. The difficulty is up there, beacuse some characters are painfully cheap, but once you learn to use all the abilities the game affords you, it gets a lot more bearable. Almost easy, even.

The other main mode of play is the “Castle” mode, which I was hoping would have a little adventuring, but rather it’s a series of rooms with specific challenges. Some are just beating down a handful of zombies, some collecting a number of hearts, and some fighting another character with stat bonuses or penalties. It’s neat, and there are plenty of goodies to be won. Which brings me to a particularly fun aspect: accessories! As you progress through Castle Mode, you win junk that you can equip to your characters to make them look… well, most just make them look odd. Simon Belmont with shades? Carmilla with a pirate hat? It certainly adds a splash of humour to the game.

Perhaps the greatest part of the game is the huge stride it makes for Nintendo’s online gaming system. Every game up until now has required the use of friend codes. While Judgement still uses them, they are not mandatory to save friends. Or so I’ve heard. I haven’t actually been able to connect to another player yet. Probably because so few people are buying this game. But in any case, that’s awesome. The only thing it’s missing is WiiSpeak support, and it would be the first perfectly (ahem) executed online Wii game. Oh well! Maybe next year.

So if there’s all these great things about it, then why is it so half-assed? Well, like I said, the difficulty is pretty rough until you’ve learned to exploit all your abilities and then it gets pretty easy. Also, the controls are kinda wonky. I mean, you attack by pressing the B button, and use special moves by holding A and then pressing B. It’s totally weird. Don’t even get me started on how bad it is if you try to use the Wiimote+Nunchuck control scheme. But anyway, it’s a half-decent game, but maybe you’d rather wait until it hits the bargain bin. It’s not really that bad, but if you’re picky, you might just want to look elsewhere.

I’ve got aces in my eyes

It’s December again! Despite living in Winterpeg and working in retail, there are some things I absolutely love about the month of December. X-Entertainment’s Advent Calendar would be the obvious one. Oh, and that Christmas thing is pretty cool too, as long as you don’t mind overblown holidays. I also like the opportunity to dress up my website with little snowmen. A little snowman. Whatever. The point is snowman.

But with this change in header image comes an absolutely massive commitment: The 24 Days of Materialism. Yes. That’s right. It’s back. You may or not remember that last year I attempted to review 24 things, one a day from December 1st until December 24th. It burned out with only three days to go, but I feel good about it this year! And for someone who hasn’t made more than three blog posts a month for almost the entire year, it’s a pretty grand claim. But I can do it! And I will do it! You shouldn’t start sentences with ‘and’ or ‘but’! Given that it’s a pretty big project and it’s my first day, I think I’ll start small.

Jones Soda carbonated candy has been around for ages, but I only just discovered it whence I was visiting the top of a mountain in Banff earlier this year. I then found more in the shopping district and was amazed. I ate it, and it was magical. I was swooned. When I returned home, I proudly showed off my find to my mom and youngest brother, but was quickly shot down when he said he’d been getting the stuff down at the 7-Eleven for ages. I slumped to the ground in defeat.

The Jones candy isn’t terribly special on its own. I’ve been eating little candy bottlecaps and other stuff that has the sweet fizzing effect that the Jones candy so proudly touts since I was but a wee nipper, and as far as I can remember, they all taste just as good. Or even better in some cases. I’d take a root beer bottlecap over a sour green apple “fufu berry” Jones candy any day. The cream soda is rockin’ though! The thing that really sets them apart is the sweet tin that they come in. Okay, fine, it’s not super great, but I’ve been obsessed with candy tins since like forever. I have a collection of Altoids tins in my closet that is just a small testament to my love of candy tins. In recent years, I’ve been purging my room of useless things like that bit by bit, so it’s not as apparent as it would have been back when this site was still coated in black. It physically hurt me to toss out the Jones candy tins, but I’m told that fewer people respect packrats.

If that last sentence weren’t there, I’d have a wicked awesome segue into this paragraph, but so it goes. I just wanted to mention today that it’s been a whole year since I gave Torrential Equilibrium a facelift, and I still like it. Though to its credit, I think the last layout lasted about three years, so we’ll see how I feel about this one come 2010.

It’s been too long

I don’t know if I ever told you, but in April of 2005 or so, I grew a wart on my left middle finger. I hadn’t had a wart in forever, so I was a little worried about it at first, but as time went on, I realized that it was perfectly harmless. Of course, it only lasted long enough for time to have gone on because the wart medication in the house was ancient and had clearly lost all potency. I asked for new stuff, but it never came.

A year or so later, I was looking at the wart, and decided that it was time for it to go. Probably about a week after that, I got up, went out, and bought my own damn wart remover. It was one of those neat home freezing kits that you see boasted about on TV so much. I tried it, and I thought the sensation was really cool. Two weeks after that, I realized that my little friend had retained his residence on my finger. So I used another blast of freezing, but I upped the dosage to enough to take out a heavier wart, as the manual instructed me to do. It did not work.

Time continued to move forward, and I think it must have been about a year ago, maybe a little more, that I noticed there was a second little wart growing just south of the original. Earlier this year I consulted the doctor about getting rid of them. She said that if I shaved them off with a razor and applied some new gel, they would disappear. I routinely chopped the little buggers away, but never got around to purchsing a new tube of wart gel, so they never disappeared.

It’s now been over three-and-a-half years since my first little friend made his appearance, and what exactly is the moral to this long, seemingly pointless story? I just wanted to have sufficient reason to post this picture, really. To be honest, I wanted it to be long enough that it would push the picture down beyond the main view of the page, but I just can’t drone on any more, and I’ve puffed the rest of the story as much as I can! Ah well, here’s the grossness!

It’s what’s left of the little motherfuckers after the doc burned the shit out of ’em. good riddance. I suppose if you’re still looking for a moral, it’s that you need to nip these things in the bud as fast as you can unless you’re eager to have them as a permanent fixture in your life.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts – The Redemption of a Franchise

I’ll start off saying that I’m not a huge fan of new games journalism. Sure, I read Gamespite as if it were the word of the Christ reborn, but it’s more for entertainment purposes. If I want to know if a game might interest me, it’s probably the last place I’d go. Most of the time I get no idea from their articles whether the game is worth playing or not. It’s not that I think new games journalism is bad, I just think it’s a little pretentious to take games so seriously. They’re just for fun, after all. So then the question would be, as it were, why exactly am I throwing my hat into the ring and trying it out?

For one, I think I’m probably going to do a really bad job. If I were to submit this article to Parish, he’d probably turn it down and say it’s too much like a standard review. But I have been thinking along the NGJ lines while coming up with things to say about Nuts & Bolts, and I suppose it’s worth a try, if only to keep things a smidgen fresher around this dusty old corner of the intertubes. That said, I’ve linked a few other non-standard game reviews on the “related” section of the navi bar. There’s a short description of how I feel each fits under the banner of new games journalism in the hover text. Also, the 2007 Vitrual Console Wishlist is linked, but that’s just because it features Banjo-Kazooie.

So now that I’ve already gone and broken the fourth wall and stated exactly what my intention here is, I suppose I should wrap up this introduction of sorts and get on with the article. Can you all be real good pals and forget that these last couple paragraphs happened once your eyes drift across that separator line below? Thanks. I really appreciate it. Makes the whole thing seem a little more legit.


Banjo-Kazooie is not a popular franchise by any stretch. Not with gamers anyway. I know my girlfriend likes it, but the only thing she’s played in the last God-knows-how-long that doesn’t involve a plastic guitar is Trauma Center, and she gave up on that shortly after she lost her first patient. And I mean that as in the first patient she’d ever treated. Pressing on, gamers tend to look upon Rare’s Mario clone with a burning hatred that is not totally undeserved. The first game in the series was a very basic platformer that basically just had you collect a plethora of objects. It goes without saying that the less important doodads would be laying out for anyone to see, but even the Jiggies (equivalent to Mario’s power stars) would occasionally just be lying there for even the most witless of player to scoop up with no effort (like every single dragon in Spyro).

The sequel that appeared a couple years later, Banjo-Tooie, didn’t have a much brighter light cast upon it. It abolished the Effortless Jiggy and made players work a little bit harder for that golden treasure, but at the same time at least doubled the number of trivial whatsits you needed to collect. I’m sure that at the time, people thought both games were upstanding shows in a sea of terrible Mario wannbes, but over time, that lesser-of-two-evils respect faded and people realized just what a cheap hackjob these games were. Of course I still look upon them with an air of pleasant memories, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re kinda half-assed.

To be blunt, the less said about Grunty’s Revenge, the better.

But times have changed, and it’s been nearly a decade since we’ve seen the bear and bird in anything more than retro webpages. Fortunately for all parties involved, time has been kind to Banjo and Kazooie, even though the opening of the game would lead you to believe otherwise. Which is a point of note in itself; the game is constantly poking fun at its heritage and all gaming tropes that have been called out as stale and thoughtless. Nearly every main character balks at having to collect something, and the writers took every chance they could get to rip on having to complete arbitrary tasks for seemingly worthless prizes. In fact, the first achievement you will get is titled “Pointless Collector”, after a scripted race to see who can collect more golden thingamabobs.

Since the writers are complaining about collecting, there’s obviously still a large collecting element to the game. Jiggies are still the number one goal, but each and every one has a challenge associated with it. From simple races to protecting landmarks to defeating a number of enemies, every piece of gold has its price. The widely-loathed musical notes have returned as well, but only as a simple unit of currency, making collecting them completely optional. There is still a set number on each stage, but they’re also handed out liberally for almost every task you complete, so you could theoretically make it through the entire game and buy everything without picking up a single static stage note.

Besides the Jiggies and notes, there are also Jinjo tokens to be earned. They are won exactly like Jiggies, but are, much like the notes, completely optional. They’re used at the bingo hall, where you are rewarded notes and vehicle parts for filling in rows and columns on the bingo board. Lastly are vehicle parts, and we’ll go over those later. That brings our total of collectibles up to four. Four. Three of which are entirely unnecessary. Over the limitless number of things you needed to pick up in Banjo-Tooie, I’d say that’s one Hell of an improvement.

So if the game isn’t about collecting copious amounts of knick-knacks, then what is left? Well friends and relations, that’s a question I’m glad you may have asked. This is where those vehicle parts come in. See, the game doesn’t work anything like Banjos before. There are no moves to learn, no platforming to be done. No, no. This game is all about driving. And flying. And driving, uh, boats. Boating?

This time around, Banjo can run and jump to his heart’s content, but the game was designed specifically with vehicles in mind. And the best part is that you, the player, get to create each and every one of those vehicles. This creates not only gigantice game worlds, but also very open worlds and even better, a ton of room to experiment with ways to overcome the many challenges the game puts you up against. The hub world is the only exception, since you’re only allowed to drive a basic shopping cart-like machine, but there are still opportunities to press on and get places you shouldn’t be. In the early game, there are slopes that neither Banjo on foot nor the simple cart can scale, but with some clever use of the protruding pieces of scenery (windowsills, lamps, signposts, etc), you can reach most of the available area before you even enter the first game world. If you thought sequence breaking in Metroid was exciting, you’ll most definitely get a kick out of exploring bits of Showdown Town that you aren’t yet meant to be in.

And then you’ll venture into the first level and all restrictions will melt away. Early on you won’t be able to make much more than simple car- and bike-styled vehicles, but once you find even one propeller, the worlds are yours to explore as openly as you want, and there is plenty to explore. Since the worlds are contained, it’s not exactly open-world play as in a sandbox game, but the levels are many times bigger than anything seen in previous Banjo titles. The fact that there are so many ways to see each world adds to the value as well. If you want to cruise around in a car, that’s cool. Feel like taking to the skies in a plane or helicopter? Go for it! Or maybe you’d prefer the challenge of scaling the tallest peaks on foot. Why not? The world is your oyster, and you’re truly able to to do anything you want exactly as you see fit.

Now the best part of this completely open game design is that you can also tackle the game’s many challenges however you like. The game invites you to try out some suggested ways of doing things early on by forcing you to use pre-built vehicles once in a while, but less than halfway through, they become very scarce and it’s up to the player to decide how they want to solve the problem. Most races, for instance, take place on the ground, but if you’re having trouble driving the specific course, why not take to the skies instead? Races are marked by compulsory rings to pass through, but a low-flying plane would not only soar past any competition, but also nullify any issue of minor enemies in the way and terrain becomes almost negligible. The game will never directly penalize you for using a vehicle they didn’t intend to be used in the mission, and you’ll get an extra sense of accomplishment for thinking outside the box.

But there’s got to be more than races, right? Of course! There are a wide variety of mission types, and seeing them through in your own way is as rewarding as anything else. For example, a later mission in the first world sees a statue under attack by airborne foes, with the gamer left to try to defend it for two minutes. A gamer’s first instinct would be to build a flying warship to take out the invaders, and if your contraption is built the right way and you’re skilled enough, I’d say go for it. I, on the other hand, found that there were far too many enemies to be able to complete the mission. I tried and failed many times before genius struck. I went back to the garage and tried something completely different. I figured that if I couldn’t stop the enemies from destroying the statue, then maybe taking them down was the wrong approach. So I build what could be best described as a flying house with no floor. It was two layers thick, powered by all the engines and propellers that I had available, and I flew it over to ground zero and landed it right over top of the statue. I sat there for two minutes as my assailants shot at and dive-bombed the small fortress, and laughed heartily when the time expired and my statue was left without a single scratch.

Another example is one mission where I was given the task to transport as many coconuts as I could from the top of a tower on one side of the island to the coconut farm where they would be sucked up into some kind of coconut repository. You are given three minutes. I should also mention that in this game you can pick up almost any object in the scenery, and that is basically the only thing you can accomplish on foot. At first I tried using a helicopter to winch over one nut at a time, and as you may imagine, it went very poorly. After that, I put together a large flying monstrosity composed of a giant tray and a trash bin, thinking that I could load it up with nuts and fly them over in two or three trips. Putting the nuts on and taking them off one by one was very time-consuming, and I could have passed, but just by the skin of my teeth. And then I crashed into the coconut-sucker and it detached from the rest of the machinery. I had another brainstorm, and on the next attempt, I broke of the coconut-sucker and flew it over to the tower. From there, I picked it up, and simply swept it over the area, sucking up every single nut in no time flat. I had more than two minutes to spare by the time I was done.

One final example is from one of the many Jinjo challenges. This particular Jinjo turned into a huge ball and asked me to ram into him and fling him as far as I could. He would give me a token if I made him go a predetermined distance. So I tried over and over with many different vehicles built for speed or power, trying different angles and tactics, but I could never seem to get him far enough. There would always be a hill to slow him or an obstacle to outright stop him, and to get a perfectly aimed shot was near impossible. When I did get the perfect shot, it still wasn’t sufficient. By that time I was bashing my head against an ottoman in frustration, trying to come up with a solution. It was then that I build a super fast plane with a carrying tray. I put the Jinjo-ball in the tray, took off, and while my engines cut out once I passed the allowed field of play, it still drifted far further than I needed, and I got up and did a little celebratory dance for finally finding a loophole.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a fantastic game, and that’s probably because aside from the characters, it’s nothing like the previous games in the series. It gives the player a true sense of freedom, letting them play the game however they want, building machines of their own design and then tweaking them to get the absolute perfect performance for whatever given task they may be facing. It often suggests the obvious way, holding the player’s hand for a little while to get them started, but then lets them fly free to make their own decisions on how to play. It encourages players to think outside the box by making some challenges frusrtatingly difficult (but still possible) to do though by following the most logical course of action. It’s an incredibly engaging – if at times infuriating – experience that I’m glad I didn’t skip out on. Nuts & Bolts is a game that genuinely lets the player take control, and I think that’s the kind of thing that truly defines a next-generation gaming experience. That and it’s gobs of fun.

Oh, and the music is totally solid, as to be expected, even if it is all completely recycled from previous games. The Banjoland medley? Nostalgically awesome. But we all already knew that anything Grant Kirkhope or Robin Beanland does is terrific, right?