Alberto Riol
4J Studios explains the development of the Banjo ports
Bottles' Revenge and online multiplayer haven't been implemented in Tooie
By now, probably you have already watched Banjo-Tooie’s Easter teaser trailer, downloaded Tooie’s Splendid Theme or the no-longer available Stop ‘n’ Swop gamerpics. And, for sure, you are aware of the release date being April 29th, or the finally confirmed price of 1200 Microsoft Points.
What else do you need to know? Well, in case you are a lazy guy or simply you’ve spent too much time lately playing Resident Evil 5’s Versus, you may also want to read our exclusive interview with 4J Studios’ cofounder, Paddy Burns, about the development process of the Banjo ports. If not, don’t worry, here you have a brief summary with the main highlights in our classic list form:
- 4J Studios was contacted by Microsoft in early 2008 to work on the ports. The company started to work on them in May, and by the end of that month they already had BK XBLA fully playable; two months later, Tooie was already working. Then, they had to face different adjustments in time to meet the release dates. “The full project was officially 9 month,” Burns stated.
- Initially, the Stop ‘n’ Swop feature was only conceived to work between BK XBLA and Nuts & Bolts, but they soon realized that it was plausible to include Tooie in the equation. Burns comments on the final connection between BK and BT: “We have implemented, under MGS and Rare guidance, the gameplay that completes the SnS journey; it is, as much as anyone can say, the ‘original plan’, and everyone involved thinks it’s cool. It’s certainly more than a reward system. Bearing in mind we cannot create new areas, gameplay or content, it wasn’t trivial to implement either.”
- Still, Burns thinks that “the Stop ‘n’ Swop legend is a monster amongst fans of the series” and probably “means different things to different people”, but they really hope “people will enjoy and appreciate what has been done.”
- Regarding the lack of cutscenes to explain how SnS is activaded, Burns says that “it was Rare’s request to do it this way. They wanted SnS to be approachable and usable for all, so having all areas open altogether was the only real option. Trekking back between games maybe fine for the hardened gamer but not for those new to the series. This might be a bit of disappointment for some but as far as we can tell there’s no cutscene ‘missing’, nothing exists in the source.”
- No online multiplayer or Bottles’ Revenge will be implemented in Tooie. Burns stated that “both of those would have been a considerable step outside of the ‘faithful port’ remit. They would have needed lots and lots of new gameplay, new AI, new tech, new levels even, that just wasn’t what this development was about.” On the matter of the multiplayer, he added that “making the current couch-play games Live wouldn’t be very good or a lot of fun.” To be fair, nearly all of Tooie’s multiplayer modes were minigames of less than a minute, so he’s somehow right about not being easy to make it work with playes constantly returning to the game lobby. Regarding the famous counter-operative mode called Bottles’ Revenge, Rare themselves explained some time ago that, more than a technical problem, the real issue with it was that “it proved very difficult to get the gameplay right when a second player could control a boss”: with the “second player doing what they like with the boss, it makes it very difficult for the player controlling Banjo to defeat it.”
- Still, the multiplayer mode remains in the port: “All the games and 4 player split, but with awesome 30fps and HD resolution.”
- Good to know that, according to Microsoft Game Studios, the sales for Banjo-Kazooie XBLA have been “above the average” and “they expect it to continue selling at a good rate too.”
- On the note-collection glitch of Kazooie, Burns apologies by stating that, unfortunately, “bugs happen. No developer or publisher intentionally leaves a bug in but regardless of how much test effort goes in, some player somewhere will find something the army of testers didn’t. No game is ‘safe’.” But calms everybody down by confirming that “Tooie has been in the test oven a long time” so they “hope it’s all cool when it reaches your X360’s.”
So, there you have it: two more weeks to go, and the Stop ‘n’ Swop story will likely see its final chapter… or will it?
Somehow related news
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- Rare denies Blast Corps 2 and Jet Force Gemini 2 yet again ()
- No old IPs returning in the future ()
- Piñatas ’round the world! ()
- Xbox Live to possibly get more Rare titles after PD XBLA ()
2 Comments
rjoe, you are the most thick person I have heard of. Diddy Kong Racing is owned by Nintendo, so MS and Rare have NO RIGHTS TO IT. It’ll probably turn up on the Wii Shop soon anyway.
Comment by WZ678 — 28.May.09 @ 1:57 pm
please make diddy kong racing in xbla
Comment by rjoe — 18.Apr.09 @ 6:40 am