Natal provides incentive to investigate Rare classic IP
Battletoads Natal and Anticipation 2, anyone?
A few days ago, Design Director George Andreas spoke to Videogamer.com about what Natal means to them. Besides the advertising on Rare’s Twitter, Edge Magazine, and Rare’s own website in terms of programmers, we really haven’t heard much about what they want to do with it.
According to Andreas, it may mean seeing more of Rare’s classic IPs: “There are IP that we have looked at and are looking at and will be looking at in the future.”
In its heyday, Rare’s classics included the first two Banjo N64 titles, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Blast Corps, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye 007, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and Diddy Kong Racing. Of course, with two of the mentioned IP belonging to Nintendo and Nintendo denying Goldeneye 007, those are IPs that are very unlikely to end up on Natal. Andreas states that “Natal… gives us an opportunity to maybe at some point in the future investigate some of those older IPs. I won’t name names.”
While he doesn’t name names, there is one IP that Andreas thinks would work: “One in particular actually I think we can do an absolutely phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal version on with Natal. The interface, the way you interact with it – I think it would be an absolutely world-beating product. But we need to explore a little bit more in that direction.” Andreas elaborates on the future of using old IPs by saying that “Yes, there are IP that we have looked at and are looking at and will be looking at in the future as well. So, never say never. Nothing is dead in the water. There is always scope to bring something back if we feel it’s the right time.”
As for the IP itself he’s thinking of? “I’ll keep that to myself for now.”
Of course you will. So, what do you think will be the classic IP revived for Natal? I believe that the ever-elusive Killer Instinct 3 could work if they found a way to map Ultra Combos to simple body movements. Perhaps a Battletoads revival could definitely use simple body movements to its advantage. Or maybe Rare’s “world-beating product” is a sequel to It’s Mr. Pants!
Somehow related news
- Rare may be working on the 360’s version of Wii Fit ()
- Rare considers Natal will change development approach ()
- Rare “involved” with Project Natal ()
- The Future is Here; Rare is Not ()
- Rare is looking for new designers to work on Natal ()
6 Comments
I disagree with you billy I think it could work if used for the right games like killer instinct. Plus Banjo was never messed up sure Nuts and bolts was different but it was still a great game thats why it has been very acclaimed.
Comment by saicambanjo — 24.Aug.09 @ 7:14 am
well thats what I was getting at, I said it could be cool if done right, but i’m just affraid of xbox becoming like the wii. the wii had a great chance to do things right, but instead 90% of the games out for the wii are stupid gimicky, cheesy games. they have games based off controll. it should be more of controll based around the game. for example, mario kart works great. mario party works great, wii sports, and mario galaxy all have great implication of new controls, but games theres a TON more that dont work well… the mini game madness and “family” games and yadda yadda where all you do is waggle like crazy. only a few hardcore games exist on wii. something i believed they should do is games with mostly normal controll except for a few basic important actions. like marios spin in galaxy, or if you were tp have a yoshi game, aim with your wii mote instead of a joystick. if natal is used as a crutch to already good games i think it can work, but if it becomes the driving force behind everything… then its gonna suck.
Comment by billy — 24.Aug.09 @ 9:33 pm I don’t think Microsoft will be that stupid I mean unlike Nintendo they are actually known as a console for the older gamer.
Comment by saicambanjo — 25.Aug.09 @ 7:37 am true
Comment by billy — 26.Aug.09 @ 12:47 am
i really really really dont know how i feel about controller free gaming… maybe if like cirtain parts were controller free, but the rest used controllers, it could be cool, but i really dont want to see another great franchise get messed up because rare saw “potential” for change and “improovement” in it… a la banjo. but idk maybe it could be really cool.
Comment by billy — 24.Aug.09 @ 4:18 am