Update: Hot damn! It looks like the rumours were entirely accurate. The sequel has now been officially announced, and comes complete with screenshots (one of which is to the right) and a trailer — check out Joystiq’s full report. This is now very much one of my most anticipated games ever.

Original Post:

This isn’t the first time I’ve written a post like this, but it looks like a fresh rumour of an in-development Beyond Good and Evil 2 has hit the web — this time originating from a French magazine that interviewed Michel Ancel, the designer of Beyond Good and Evil.

According to Kotaku, a dozen staff have been working on a Beyond Good and Evil sequel’s preproduction for a year. Unfortunately, Ubisoft hasn’t officially given the game the go-ahead — and thus the funding — for full-scale development. It’s unknown why exactly Ubisoft is relunctant to green-light the project despite allowing a lengthy preproduction phase, but at least a sequel is a genuine possibility, right?

If you haven’t actually played Beyond Good and Evil, I’m going to take yet another opportunity to encourage you to do so. It’s regarded as one of the best games ever made by the majority of people who’ve played it, and I’d personally put it right up there with the greats such as Grim Fandango and Psychonauts. Watch the trailer, and then go buy it — preferably for a console.

Being a bit of a Banjo-Kazooie fan, I’ve naturally been keeping my eye on the development of the upcoming trilogy-forming sequel. It certainly sounds like it’s shaping up well, with the majority of the original Banjo-Kazooie team running the show and the humour supposedly stepped up a notch to ensure those who’ve grown up since playing the originals aren’t left out.

And now, a bunch of leaked screenshots have hit the web. I have to admit that many of them leave me a little underwhelmed, lacking the bright, happy feel that the original game had (despite the deeply twisted slant). The environments also seem a bit clean to me, lacking much of the rich texture the previous games had. I do really like the two screenshots I included in this post though, so clearly it’s not a lost cause.

My main concern is that Rare seem to be unsure about what art direction they want to take. One of the best things about Banjo-Kazooie is that it was largely a cartoon-like game, with bright, blue skies and beautifully textured areas. Some of these new screenshots — this one in particular — seem to be an awkward blend of photo-realistic textures and cartoon styling; and the lighting is very cold, painting harsh shadows on everything. It just doesn’t sit right on my eyes.

Still, it’s important to remember that the game is a long way from release, that not all the screenshots look unappealing, and that the original Banjo team — who also developed the eye candy that was Viva Piñata — are at the helm, so things could change a lot visually.

Guess we’ll see! You can check out Shacknews’s image gallery for all 17 shots.

Update: OK, I’m significantly more worried about this game now. Some video footage has been unveiled, along with a stack of new information — including the new title of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. The game’s Wikipedia article has been appropriately fleshed out, incorporating these new details.

The most startling bits of information are the revelations that only “20% of the game retains traditional platforming elements”, and that all the moves (including those seen in Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie) have been scrapped. Instead the emphasis is now on building vehicles to do stuff, with over 1,600 available parts. So clearly there’s going to be a heavy puzzle/construction element.

Now, while it does sound like Rare is trying to do something new here and coming up with inventive gameplay as they did in the N64 days, with Banjo-Kazooie 3 I kind of wanted something more conventional and iterative. If they wanted to produce a game totally detached from the series’ history, they should have produced a new world to go along with it. All this technology and focus on building stuff just doesn’t seem like it fits in with the old Banjo-Kazooie world, which had quite a fantastical, fairy tale tone to it. But then as I mentioned originally, these screenshots don’t really convey that old atmosphere anyway.

So I’ll admit that I’m disappointed, but I do think a good game is still likely to come out of this. The team responsible for it is good, as shown with Viva Piñata. And this isn’t the first time Rare’s mixed up two genres, with the Nintendo 64’s Blast Corps fusing action and puzzles to almost perfection — another game that’s dying for a current-gen sequel.

Perhaps Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts’ mixture of traditional platforming, construction, and puzzles will turn out to be great. However, it’s going to be a far cry from the sequel that many fans of the series were expecting, and I suspect that initial shock will frighten many people away; the very average Kameo and sequel to the legendary Perfect Dark have caused people to have significantly less faith in Rare.

Update #2: The head of design for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts has been interviewed by Games Radar, and I have to admit that it has made me a little more confident about this game being good. A lot of the changes I was initially surprised by are justified somewhat, so it’s well worth reading if you’re an old Banjo fan like myself.

Update #3: There’s now a mondo-size interview with the Rare chaps about the game available on the Rare Witch Project. It goes further towards pacifying me and making me look forward to the game, for sure.

Well, Valve’s done it again! Following the superb Meet the Heavy, Meet the Soldier, Meet the Engineer, and Meet the Demoman (My favourite!), the latest treat gives you a glimpse into the personality of the ever-annoying Scout. As usual, the timing and general cinematic quality is excellent.

The Scout has always been my most disliked character in Team Fortress 2. There’s just something about the way he looks, sounds, and taunts that can really get on your nerves when he manages to slip past your personal defences and leaves you as a pile of mushy flesh. This video really doesn’t do much to change that! I felt sorry for the poor Heavy at the end.

Valve’s videos are always worth watching, so be sure to check it out.

With Mario Kart Wii having arrived today, I’ve spent some time going through the four (of eight) cups available to you at the beginning and have come to some conclusions. To put it simply, I don’t think I’m going to spend much time with it.

While my recent countless hours spent on the PlayStation 3 will be a big influence, one of the predominant factors constantly getting on my nerves is just how dated the game looks. I’m not going to sugarcoat the reality: Mario Kart Wii looks almost technologically identical to Mario Kart: Double Dash, which is quite underwhelming when you recall that Double Dash was released five years ago.

What makes it even more underwhelming is that the vast majority of the play mechanics are also the same. Half of the 32 maps are directly lifted from past Mario Kart games, which I’ve played a billion times before. The remaining half are new, but don’t really innovate much beyond what we’ve seen before. Map elements that were once impressive such as the big barrel that launches you up the mountain return, but are actually executed less impressively and just fall flat. Moments that made me go “Wow!” and smile in Double Dash entirely fail this time around.

There only seems to be one new item added to the series too, which is the thundercloud (not to be confused with the lightning strike). Otherwise it’s the same items, half the same maps, and the same general racing mechanics. There’s almost nothing that significantly drives the series forward, with the changes that have been made — such as the addition of motorbikes — feeling very insignificant.

I realise this is sounding very critical, so I’ll clarify: Mario Kart Wii is not a bad game. Instead, it’s one that rests far too heavily on its laurels and fails to innovate. While Mario Kart and even Nintendo games in general do often reuse past elements and we’re normally fine with it, in this case it just doesn’t work. I’m not excited by the game at all, with a constant feeling of “I’ve seen this before” creeping around in my head.

The only thing that actually makes the game feel different to Double Dash is the steering wheel, which is admittedly very well done. Everything else is so derivative that I just cannot genuinely enjoy the game, despite me really, really wanting to. I suppose someone who’s never really played Mario Kart before will have a lot of fun with this, but for series veterans it brings little to the table. It almost looks like they directly imported the animations and whatnot from Double Dash when it comes to many of the items (bananas, shells, bombs, etc); they look and behave exactly the same.

I guess a lot of the blame lies on the Wii itself, though. The developers were clearly limited by the technology, which has allowed them to do little in the way of fancy environment physics (a huge part of modern racing games) and core graphical beauty. The only real distinction between the graphics in Mario Kart Wii and Double Dash is the addition of a bloom lighting effect, which does little to help the game escape looking like a last-generation relic on today’s high-definition televisions.

Perhaps those who’re more serious about their Mario Kart will get more mileage out of Mario Kart Wii than me, but I for one am really disappointed. Mario Kart 64 and Double Dash felt like they really pushed the series forward, but Mario Kart Wii simply doesn’t. Even Double Dash didn’t introduce that much new stuff, but due to its graphics and course complexity being far beyond Mario Kart 64’s it still felt very different and new. I have a hard time seeing how anyone could get the same thrill from Mario Kart Wii that they felt when they tried Mario Kart 64 or Double Dash for the first time.

One final thing worth noting is the online play: it’s pretty good. The execution is much better than Mario Kart DS’s online component, although the core online play experience hasn’t changed much. Still, it’s a feature that may enable you to look past all the shortcomings mentioned above if you’ve never really experienced Mario Kart online before.

In short: this is the best Mario Kart game yet, but may not bring enough to the table to impress you as much as its predecessors did. If you’re new to Mario Kart then definitely pick it up, but if not I recommend trying it out before buying.

Update: I’ve bought this month’s copy of Edge and it looks like they share a lot of my discomfort with the game, awarding it 6/10 and clearly picking up on the same “I’ve seen this before” vibe. Their chief complaint seemed to be the tracks themselves, which are much wider than in past Mario Kart games. Nintendo were obviously trying to cater for the new maximum of 12 carts, but in the process removed much of the furious bashing and overtaking that was present in the past. They also disapprove of the removal of normal balloon battle mode, and the way that trying to mix the feel of online/offline play has resulted in both being not as good as they could have been (tracks too big for a few people, AI ruining online games, etc).

I decided I was well overdue for a bit of high-definition console action while taking a week off work at the end of March, so I treated myself to a PlayStation 3. It arrived within days courtesy of Play.com, and naturally I’ve been giving it a good burning in. I have to admit: it’s pretty damned good!

I pretty much just got the console for the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4, the latest and supposedly last in the amazing Metal Gear Solid series. But having been sampling the many other delights on the console, the general notion of the PlayStation 3 not having plenty of fun games seems unwarranted. There’s enough here to keep me going for ages!

Some of these are a bit old so I’ll just drop down some general feelings of mine regarding the PlayStation 3 games I’ve played (all supplementary screenshots are in-game):

Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. I’m enjoying the thick storyline of this, and the overall tone of the game gives me some serious vibes of Broken Sword — a classic adventure game. It even looks superficially reminiscent of some parts of Broken Sword 3 (yes, you have to climb those cliffs). Gameplay-wise it’s above average but not fantastically original, with gunfights being very similar in nature throughout the game but always tactically interesting due to your fragility and the emphasis on using cover. It’s more a game of exploration and storyline though, so it’s appropriately right up any adventure game fan’s alley.

Heavenly Sword. I haven’t got very far into this, but the scale of the combat has been repeatedly astounding me and it looks like another quality storyline’s on the cards. Great voice acting, sound effects, characters, and accessible but deep combat options keep things spicy. While I don’t want to focus on graphics too much, they really do deserve note here — just check out IGN’s image gallery for a taste, which pales in comparison to how intense it looks in motion. Easily one of the most technically accomplished PS3 titles.

Gran Turismo 5: Prologue. I’m disappointed that there’re no damage models (supposedly being included in an Autumn 2008 patch), but for £17 I’ve been having a great time with this — in no small part because of the online play, which is a far cry from the offline play and has nutters running you off the road at every opportunity. It’s definitely a much purer racing game than most though with absolute focus on the driving/track physics, so I’ll need something like MotorStorm to satisfy my more destructive side. Especially fun if you have someone to play it with.

Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction. The in-engine cutscenes are amazing, and the gameplay is fun and varied too. There’s a lot of scripting going on, but it makes the experience of stuff like the opening level’s city incredible due to how much is going on around you. This is one of the few platform games other than Nintendo’s efforts that’s worth your time thanks to a great combination of classic platforming, weaponry, and presentation. No particular part is outstanding, but it all comes together beautifully.

Assassin’s Creed. This is actually much better than I expected after witnessing the initial flurry of disappointment following its release. The graphics are amongst the best, the storyline seems pretty reasonable, the environment interaction and controls are brilliant, and I’ve been having fun going around doing what I’ve been asked to do. I imagine it’ll get repetitive if it doesn’t go beyond listening to conversations, picking pockets, and killing, but it’s fun while it lasts. I play it in short bursts so perhaps that helps.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma. I think this is really poor to be honest, and not my type of game at all. The environments are clearly of a last generation and’ve been given some superficial improvements, the gameplay doesn’t appeal to me at all, and the general atmosphere of the game just turns me off on every level. While I’m sure it’s a good buy for die-hard fans of the original (it would seem to be the definitive version), I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t have liked it back when that came out either. I just don’t like how it feels and was unable to derive any real joy from it. Mostly just frustration.

MotorStorm. Crazy fun! MotorStorm has provided me with lots of laugh-out-loud moments, with thematically limited but insanely intricate courses leading to all sorts of crashes, near-misses, and road rage. The magic is in the opposition, with the AI vehicles being surprisingly vicious: they push you into rocks, they nudge your back so you spin out, and will generally do anything they can to screw you up — pretty realistic as it’s exactly the kind of scumbag behaviour online players exhibit too. My only real criticisms are that more courses would have been nice, and the surprising lack of non-online multiplayer: it’s quite clearly the type of game that’s begging for split-screen social play.

I’m of the opinion that all the above games sans Ninja Gaiden Sigma are must-play titles for any PlayStation 3 owner.

My LOVEFiLM list (monthly subscription for unlimited holding of 1–3 games/films at a time) is currently populated with Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2, Burnout Paradise, Turok, and Resistance: Fall of Man. On my to-buy list is Metal Gear Solid 4, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Grand Theft Auto 4. I’m hopeful I can review all titles in the latter list after their release.

On a non-gaming note, the multimedia capabilities of the PlayStation 3 are quite an unsung asset. The level of polish to the music, DVD, and Blu-Ray playing software is impressive, with slick menus for navigating practically any format you stick in it — including a data DVD full of AVI files (which I found useful for watching some television programmes I’d missed and downloaded). With the console physically looking good too and outputting via HDMI, it’s a very feasible replacement for a lot of your home cinema equipment, and is probably more configurable/extensive than a lot of people’s home cinema equipment too. While I knew it could do this stuff, I didn’t expect it to be as sophisticated as it is.

If you were running an online game shop, what would you say is the best way of guaranteeing customers never, ever buy from you again? Leaving the disc out of the box? Overcharging them? Delivering it weeks later than you expected? No. The best way is to make them have to utterly destroy the box to gain access to the disc.

I’ve been doing a bit of catch-up with games having taken a week off work, and one I meant to play but never did was Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods, the expansion pack for Black & White 2 — a superb game in my opinion. It’s become very difficult to get hold of though, so with little choice I ordered from HMV’s online shop. For those of you outside the UK, HMV is one of the largest music/game/film chains in the country and has stores in practically every town and city; as such, you’d think their online shop would be pretty reliable. You’d be wrong.

The game arrived, and I was all in the mood for some epic god action. Then I noticed a strange red piece of plastic lodged into the part of the DVD case that you open. Intrigued, I went to open the DVD case so I could see what it was — but it very quickly dawned on me that this was in fact the security seal. I couldn’t get into the damned thing! Slightly irritated but undeterred, I tried to ply it out with a knife. All I accomplished by doing this was breaking part of the plastic around the edges of the case, so I went searching online and found that some other fellow got exactly the same thing a couple of years ago. The result? Well, it’s not pretty.

There are three things I’ve managed to establish about this red piece of plastic:

• It will make normally opening the case impossible
• Fridge magnets and any amount of banging on the case seems to have no effect on it
• They are typically removed in HMV shops with an ultra-strong magnet
• It goes through the entire case, so using physical tools to extract it will almost certainly fail

For anyone else who stumbles across one of these security seals (I’m sure more than a few people will), the best way to remove it without irreparably destroying your game assets or going to your local HMV shop is to:

• Use scissors to cut open the thin plastic sleeve that holds the cover art
• Remove the cover art
• Pull the case open from the bottom until you have enough room to remove the manual
• Remove the manual
• Do whatever it takes to remove the entire front cover, thus revealing the disc
• The security seal goes underneath the button used to release the disc, so you need to push together the two halves of the circular button so you can simultaneously remove the disc
• Find an unused DVD case or buy some (it’s useful to have a stock in your house for general storage and situations like this)
• Put the cover art, manual, and disc into the new DVD case

Hope this helps. And remember: order from somewhere else if you can! If you receive a DVD case toting this monstrous security seal, you’ll most probably have to either go to your local HMV shop or destroy the case.

Update: The customer service manager of HMV got in touch with me a few days after writing this article and offered to send me a replacement box, explaining that the mix-up was due to the same facility mailing out games to the physical shops and the online shop. Makes sense I guess, although I hope they improve their quality checking routines to ensure it doesn’t happen to more unfortunate customers. Still, I’m pleased that HMV contacted me of their own accord, and the gesture of sending a replacement — complete with cover art and manual — is appreciated. I guess it was an honest mistake that they will rectify if you ask them to.

As I’m sure anyone who’s been reading my blog for a while is aware, I’m a big fan of the Wii’s Super Mario Galaxy. I have to admit that I’ve still not completed it and have been slowly grabbing bits of playtime on it whenever I feel like it, but then that goes for pretty much every brilliant single-player I have in my backlog (BioShock, Command & Conquer 3, Company of Heroes, and more). Kind of amazing how a job saps your desire to play lengthy single-player games — it isn’t just me who ends up with a huge backlog like this, right?

Back to the point at hand though, TechEBlog have produced a really nice video that shows how they’d see Super Mario Galaxy looking if it were created over a decade ago (Yikes!) on the Super Nintendo. Complete with 2D elements grabbed from some classics of the era such as Yoshi’s Island, it’s probably not that far off!

It kind of saddens me that it could have easily been a lot better, though. I wish they’d put some sound effects in instead of a generic remix of the star music, thus solidifying the illusion of watching a non-existent game. Some of the animation is also pretty flaky, with the rotation in particular often seeming a bit rushed. Still, pretty good stuff! Just, if you’re going to all the trouble of making the custom artwork and whatnot for a video like this, why not spend that little bit longer perfecting it?