Rubix. Gaming Review Blog: May 2009

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts "Review"

Author: Martyn Posted under:

Game: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Published by: Microsoft
Developed by: Rare
Formats: Xbox360 Played: Xbox360
Release Date: November 14, 2008
Genre: Platformer

I was late playing the first banjo on the N64 and had to borrow a family members N64 to play it then had to wait until the release of the Xbox Live download to finish it and I thought it was a fantastic game that has dated well. I have not really played much of Tooie but I believe it to be the same kind of game as the first.

Banjo Nuts and Bolts however is completely different from the previous Banjo games. All what made the first game an all time classic has been completely stripped and remodelled. First of all the whole game is all about vehicles. At first you have limited parts and designs to accomplish anything and this game really does have a slow start. I got fed up with it pretty quickly as I felt the level design was poor and unimaginative and all the challenges felt like I was doing the same thing over and over. There was either a Race on land, water or air, getting to certain points within a time limit and carrying people or items. There were odd ones thrown in here and there but that was pretty much the jist. Each level had 6 entrances which were just to the same area with different challenges. These challenges you could gain Notes, Jiggies and Trophies (4 Trophies make up another Jiggie) depending on how well you did the challenge. Musical notes are also placed around the levels for you to collect and Jingos now offer extra challenges which unlock tokens used at a casino in Showdown Town which is the main area of the game. I actually preferred Showdown Town more then I did doing any of the other tasks. There were crates to find which unlocked extra parts, there were Jingos who were prisoner which you had to free and replace with their evil equivalent.

One thing I will comment the game on is how beautiful everything looks even down to Banjo and Kazooie. All the characters from previous games make an appearance but l just feel they have stepped away from what fans of the original games were expecting and hoping for.

The challenges can me quite challenging at time but once you have found many parts and you are able to build a better vehicle then the ones they provide you can turn a challenging race into a breeze. After awhile I did start to enjoy building vehicles and taking some of the previous challenges back on but I felt this came to late in the game and most people may have given up and put the game down by then.

In conclusion it does get better if you stick with it but on a whole I feel they could have done such a better game if the challenges and level design were better and maybe more of what we loved in the first game.

This game gets 68%

2 Comments

Fallout 3 "Review"

Author: Martyn Posted under:

Game: Fallout 3
Published by: Bethesda Softworks
Developed by: Bethesda Game Studios
Formats: Xbox360, PS3, PC Played: Xbox360

My favourite game of 2008. I had this on release day but never really played it much and until playing this game Call of Duty W&W was my favourite game of 2008 until now.

From the makers of Oblivion another classic and a game that would make my top 10 of all time, Fallout 3 plays pretty much the same. From the start you play as a baby and choose what your character will look like in future. The US is a devastated wasteland after a nuclear war, your character was born inside vault 101 a survival shelter designed to protect a number of humans for the nuclear fallout.

Not far into the game your Father leaves you and you decided to follow. Once out you will be amazed by the graphics of the wasteland, everything looks fantastic and you get that sense of being alone in the wastelands of America.

Along the way you visit small towns, mines, slave camps and much more as you fight off the enemies that inhabit the wastelands. The control system plays like Oblivion and has the same level up which allows you to gain new knowledge out of many skills which include science, lock pick, heavy and small gun etc etc. Each skill can be maximised to 100% and it’s up to you which skills you will want to learn and how to develop your character as you progress through the game.

There is a Karma level for your character which increases or decreases depending on the choices you make while in the wasteland. If you want to be a good guy just make the choices or vice versa if you want to play the bad guy. I myself chose to mix it up a bit depending on if I liked who I was working for.

You can use most food and drink found in the wasteland but the problem is everything outside the vault has radiation and this is another thing you will have to watch in your game, lucky enough you can pay a Doctor in some towns to cure your radiation poisoning at a certain price, he will also cure any addictions to medications you may pick up. All money is in Bottle Caps which you earn by completing missions, finding them in the wastelands or just selling items you have found.

Like Oblivion you can only carry so much, anything more and you will be unable to move quickly or fast travel. You can fast travel from location to location so long as you have found the location first on foot and there are no enemies around.

Through the game all options like stats, items weapons and maps will be on your pitboy, something issued to you at the start of the game. Another interesting point is you can also pick up people to assist you in some quests for a short time including your loyal dog Dogmeat if you find him. Dogmeat has been in previous games and if killed in battle he will be dead forever. This applies to any characters you meet in the game and this is my only problem. It’s nice to have things true to life but if I kill someone by accident that has a major role to play within the game to provide a quest later on if he is dead I can’t access that quest!

This game is huge, I have played over 60 hours and that’s not including the 3 downloadable content out. I won’t spoil any of the story but one more point I will cover is VATS. This stands for Vault Tec Assisted System and allows you at the touch of a button to choose a limb on any enemy you meet. You can choose the head, legs, arms, weapon or body. You can only use it a number of times but it will replenish slowly. Real-time combat is paused, and action is played out from varying camera angles in a computer graphics version of "bullet time," creating a combat system that the Bethesda developers have described as a hybrid between turn-based and real-time combat.There are also two factions you can work for at the end of the game. One being the Brotherhood who you will notice around during the game and will help you from time to time so long as you don’t shoot at them.