You may have heard rumblings after the festive season had drawn to a close that the Banjo team were back at work. Well, we’re happy to reveal that this wasn’t just indigestion from the last of the turkey sandwiches, but rather a li’l sum’n sum’n that we’ve got on the boil to spice up Nuts & Bolts, as well as the incredibly exciting work that we’ve been putting into the forthcoming release of Banjo-Tooie on Xbox LIVE Arcade®. The game will be available to download this April, appropriate since Easter is the designated time for hunting multi-coloured eggs.
In what promises to be amongst the biggest and boldest – and certainly the bear-iest – releases on Xbox LIVE Arcade, Banjo-Tooie will be a note-perfect migration of Banjo and Kazooie’s second adventure. In their struggle against Grunty and her wicked sisters, the bear and bird can now rely on the extra grunt supplied by the Xbox 360, bringing with it silky-smooth frame rates and super-sharp HD graphics.
As with the Xbox LIVE Arcade release of Banjo-Kazooie, you can expect all the fully-featured fun from the original game. But there’s more – 4J Studios have dredged the Banjo team’s collective memory and implemented the original plan for Stop ‘n’ Swop, for the first time on any platform ever and after many long years of waiting. Without going into too much detail, the Stop ’n’ Swop items collected in Banjo-Kazooie will ‘magically’ appear in Tooie, resulting in... well, you'll just have to find out. What could be cooler than that? Nothing, that’s what – not even Kazooie turning into a dragon.
Naturally there’s still more to discover, but we want to keep some secrets. They’re not buried too deep in the game, but for now at least, our beaks are sealed.
“And what of Nuts & Bolts?” I assume you cry. You should remember an announcement from the Banjo team that they would be picking their top seven favourite player-built contraptions from all the ones uploaded to Banjo-Kazooie.com’s Showroom. I know, that’s so last year – you can read all about it on either the official blog or the Rare website. The team have drawn up a shortlist of 14 and are meticulously whittling it down to the final seven.
The entries vary from the powerful and commanding to the wild and wacky – should your creation catch our eye, you can expect to be contacted directly by MGS Rare through the email address associated with your Gamertag and asked for your full contact details. We will be sharing more detailed info on how exactly we plan to show off your contraption in February, when... ack! I’ve said too much already.
For now, you can feast your peepers on the first officially released screenshots of Banjo-Tooie... and if you're on Facebook, don't forget to visit the Banjo-Tooie fan page!
