Banjo-Kazooie 3 (Banjo-Threeie) trailer available
Wow, I wasn’t expecting this at all. I mean there was a rumour ages ago that a Banjo game might be on the Xbox 360 horizon in some magazine article listing future titles, but I didn’t really have that much faith in it coming to fruition any time soon. After all, Rare’s been very busy with other projects on said console, the most predominant of which being Viva Pinata. But no, it looks like Banjo-Kazooie 3 really is coming and isn’t too far away. Although just a teaser, there’s now a one-minute trailer available that shows off the new style of the lovable bear and bird, plus a very short glimpse of one of the levels: the overworld from the first game, complete with Gruntilda’s Lair on the cliffside.
Although the visuals look terrific in typical Rare fashion (presumably they will look very similar on to this trailer ingame, if not the same), I have to say that I’m not too keen on the new style of Banjo’s face. While I’m sure it’s barely noticable in actual gameplay since you’re zoomed out quite significantly for the majority of the time, it looks like they’ve tried to lower the cutesy value; since Banjo-Kazooie had a distinctive, weird sense of humour to contrast with the cutesy look I’m not sure it’s necessary.
Still, it’s presumably quite a way off and the fact that another sequel to one of my favourite 3D platformers of all time is coming along is good news in my book. I just sincerely hope that Rare has managed to sort themselves out and come up with the goods this time, a hope that I’m also keeping alive for Viva Pinata. I’m sure there’s nobody who doesn’t want Rare to recapture their earlier magic and consistently deliver stunning games.
You can watch the trailer on YouTube where it’s scaled down and lowered in quality, or alternatively try to download the 640×480 original (11mb) from Everdred.
Update: You can now grab a high-definition version of the trailer (direct link). Having been following forum comments and such, the general consensus seems to be that while Banjo’s new look is overall fairly good, it’s the eyes that totally throw it all off; I’ve seen people do some quick image edits where they put his old cover art eyes onto the new body and it looks pretty damn fine. I just hope Rare realises this before they get too far into development.
The only Rare action-adventure game like this that I’ve played is Starfox Adventures on the Gamecube. That game was stunningly beautiful too, and the overworld was enormous (pretty much an entire planet) - not to mention the fact that it played like a dream. Shame you don’t have an Xbox eh ;