Banjo-Kazooie

Banjo-Kazooie is the story of a bear named Banjo and the somewhat annoying but infinitely useful bird that lives in his backpack Kazooie. The game starts when the evil witch Gruntilda comes down from her lair blows up Banjo's house and steal his sister Tootie. Why? Because she wants to extract all the cuteness out of Tootie and put it into her.

Banjo-Kazooie came out in 1998 for the N64. I played it on X-Box Live Arcade though, controls have been updated to fit the new format (if you remember, N64 had some pretty funky looking controllers). It's still a pretty solid platformer. It still has the same problems though that many games from that era do, mostly concerning camera controls. But this is only a slight annoyance at times. Mostly it's cool.

The goal of the game is to collect puzzle pieces, called Jiggies in the game. There is a variety of ways at doing this. Collect five Jingos in every level, beat a boss or sometimes use the abilities you gain as you progress through the game in a fun and interesting way. With ten levels and an awesome board-style game-show at the end, just before the final boss of course, this is definitely a fun experience for all ages.

Other than the weak camera controls, I really can't complain much about anything else. It's a fun, exciting game that was made before the days of things like level grinding games or free roaming sandbox games were everywhere. It's a fun game and it makes for a pretty good time, even in the frustrating Rusty Bucket Bay level, and especially in the awesome, Halloween-themed Mad Monster Mansion. Also, it's only ten bucks, so just buy it already.

Overall: A. Pretty damn good actually. It's like Mario 64 meets the crazy people who used to work at Rareware. Too bad their games suck now-a-days though, huh? Just reselling their games on XBL or PSN to try and recapture their former glory. Either that or its the only way they can make money anymore, sad.