Reviews for Games I'll Never Beat -- Banjo Kazooie

I suck at video games and Banjo-Kazooie lets me know it! (Image and border code stolen from ign64.com. Please don't sue!!)

I can remember playing my first video game the tender age of 7. It was Galaxian for Atari's ill-fated 8-bit home computer the Atari XL. Ever since that day, I knew what I wanted to do with my life...blast the hell outta aliens in a really cool ass space ship. Well since I can't really do that (yet), why not fall back on my second dream, to play video games for a living? Well there is one good answer to that question Chuck: I suck at video games and rarely ever play them till the end.

It's not like I haven't been playing them long enough. I've been playing all sorts of video games for over a decade now, but the ratio of games I've played to games I've beaten is very unequally balanced towards the left. (Something like 10,000:7) So how can I expect to make a living reviewing video games when I suck too much to beat a vast majority of them? Well I can't, but that isn't gonna stop me from reviewing them on this little crappy site! (Whoops, sorry Scuba! I ment, pretty, pretty, site full of html coding delight!)

For my first review, I chose Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64. The reasons for choosing this game are, (1.) it is a game I'll never beat, (2.) I recently just began to play this game again after a year or so break from it. Banjo-Kazooie is a 2 year old game made by those wacky Brits at Rareware (a non-Japanese game company..wow!), which already has a sequel named Banjo-Tooie. I guess you could say this review is a bit late, but then again if you said that, and I heard you, I'd break my fist on your face. Let us move on.

B-K is a platform game much in the vain of Super Mario 64. For the first few minutes of game, you may feel like you're actually playing a cheap knock off of Mario 64, but herein lies B-K's beauty. While it may feel like it is Mario 64, you'll soon come to realize it is much more than Mario 64. It expands upon Mario in every way imaginable, more items to collect, prettier graphics, better, more ambiant sound, a plethera of new moves to master, a gigantic overworld with 9 huge sub-levels to explore, and smoother camera control, thanks to the R button. (which places the camera directly behind you no matter where you are)

Anyone who's played Mario 64 will feel right at home with B-K's control scheme. A button jumps, B button attacks, C buttons control the camera and point of view, Z button ducks, R button is a quick way to correct that sometimes way-ward camera, and a crazy combination of the Z button and the other buttons pull off a multitude of other moves. These other moves are easy to get the hang of and are essential to B-K's gameplay. With these moves, there is almost no place in the game that is unreachable...if you see it, you can probably get there.

Although I have yet to beat B-K, and probably never will, I can safely reccomend this title to anyone who enjoys a great game. I've only managed to make it as far as the snow level, (which I think is the 5th one in the game), but can already tell you that it is no-less a classic than any Mario game out there. I have yet to play Banjo-Tooie, but I can say that it sure as hell has some big shoes to fill.

If you wish to read a real review for this game, head on over to ign64.

-- The Shinigami (who would have posted more pirated pictures if he wasn't so lazy), December 9, 2000
ICQ: 8042106
AIM: shinigami EE
...........***PLEASE MESSAGE ME I WANTS TO TALK TO YOUS!!!!***

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