OK, now to go over some of the other major games that were shown off during the recent Spring Showcase.
Ahh Banjo Kazooie. It brings back fond memories for various reasons. The original was one of the best games on the N64, with brilliant graphics if you were prepared to look past the blocky textures. You played a bear and his birdy mate who lived in his backpack. As strange of the premise sounds, the unique environments and characters shone through as a outstanding platformer.
Now, after it's developer Rare were bought by Microsoft and it went a bit quiet. But Rare have now showed off the new Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and bolts, and it has taken a different approach to the previous two games. First off, its clear why they have not called this Banjo Kazooie: 3. The main focus is still platforming, but now with vehicles as well. You are given a toolbox of toys in order to make your vehicles and they can be customised massively, with a large part of the game coming from designing your vehicle to be the right machine for the job. This playground of physics is really suited to just basically, messing about.
The games main overworld, Showdown town, incorporates more of the traditional platforming elements seen in the games. From the 6 or so levels that were shown, they all seem fairly large, colourful and creative and offer a lot of variety from one level to the next one.
The game uses a intuitive in game design system for the vehicles, which can be assembled within a garage or customised 'in the field'. This simple system makes it easy for the user to make what they want out of the vehicles as they collect parts, and something I could see myself spending a long time doing.
The game also has a online mode, although the only one shown was 'Sumo', a king of the hill type game which uses custom vehicles like bumper cars in a specific area, with the game also making use of the weapons you can add on to the game. All of this looks promising and although it has not been announced, it seems likely that it will be possible to share your designs online. The game itself looks promising, and should be a return to standards for Rare, just so long as they don't stray too far from the original genre (Star Fox for example).
Other games which were shown included Ninja Gaiden 2, which doesn't stray too far from its original style, just ups the tempo dramatically. With many more enemies onscreen, and the attacks linking together much easier, it really allows for some fast, yet fairly methodical battles, with the aid of the jump-dash attack. This time, your average encounter is around 6-9 enemies, and the gore has been pushed up, with legs, arms, and everything else been thrown around the battle. One particularly nice scene involved a legless (as in without legs!) crawling up to you and planting an explosive shuriken in your chest...kaplooey. There's a lot more to talk about from the game, but this game promises to surpass the original in various ways.
Fable 2 was talked about for a bit, but it didn't really add anything new to what we already know, or think we know about what the game is going to be like. Too Human was shown off, and I still can't get my head around it, a game which is basically a Norse dungeon crawler with sci-fi elements with a epic story spreading over a trilogy. The game appears to be tuned in the same way phantasy star online on dreamcast was, and the levelling up systems seems to be fairly customisable by the user adding points to certain elements which may alter combat style.
Combat itself is similar to a point and click rpg, with the right analog stick being used to aim yourself towards a enemy who you will then attack. It seems a bit slow paced compared to the previously mentioned Ninja Gaiden, but for fans of the phantasy star series or similar PC based games, Too Human should be a enjoyable ride.
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