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Rare turns 25, celebrates by switching logos
Grimthwacker
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Registered User regular
Rare. By gum I love those guys; they've been my favorite developer over the years, from brilliant pieces of software like Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, the Donkey Kong Country Games, Banjo-Kazooie and Jet Force Gemini, to stupid-hard but still fun fare like Battletoads and Blast Corps. This year marks 25 years since the Stamper Brothers of Twycross, England started up a little company called "Ultimate: Play the Game" and made the ZX Spectrum computer their platform of choice before gaining notoriety by developing for the Nintendo Entertainment System, eventually becoming one of Nintendo's second-party devs for a successful, nearly decade-long run.
All good things must end, though, as Rare and Nintendo parted ways in 2002 shortly before the release of Star Fox Adventures on the GameCube, the (ill-advised, some would say) re-working of one of Rare's long-in-development titles, Dinosaur Planet. Microsoft jumped at the chance to have them working exclusively on their increasingly popular XBox, and despite having only 2 games released on the system (only one of them an original IP, Grabbed by the Ghoulies) and a rocky start on the XBox 360, they seem to have regained their footage as a source of creative and unique games, even though most of the original staff, including the Stampers, had long since departed.
Even through the tough times, Rare's iconic and simplistic gold and blue logo was a symbol of quality and innovation . . . but that symbol is now being retired for something new, something different, something . . .
. . . bland as hell.
Yes, this is but one variant of the new Rare logo, with others featuring the "R" within differing geometric shapes of differing colors. I'm not really knocking the new look, it's just jarring to see a logo so equated with a company's identity get changed in such a fashion. I guess Rare is really trying to rebrand themselves nowadays; the old logo could be seen as a relic from the halcyon days of its huge success with Nintendo, and after becoming more or less a Microsoft property, those days have long since ended. They still honor their roots - Live Arcade releases like Jetpac Refuled and the recent masterful enhancement of Perfect Dark prove that - but it looks like it's a whole new Rare now, and as long as they keep the innovation and fun coming, I wish them all the best for hopefully another 25 years.
Let's celebrate Rare's milestone birthday: reminisce about the good times, the great games, and how much that old logo of theirs meant to us as gamers.
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Nuts & Bolts is great; you can lose yourself for a long time just tinkering in the garage to make all sorts of crazy stuff if you're so inclined, or you could simply update some of the existing blueprints to suit your current needs. It's stuff like that which makes me respect Rare so much - you didn't have to do everything they offered in a game, but it's usually so much fun to do it all anyway that you don't really mind.
to
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Also I hate collectathons
And in case anyone is wondering, Rare's now the studio behind the Xbox avatars, and they're going to do a bunch of Natal stuff.
Rent go :P
I agree that Rare's MO eventually started skewing towards lengthy collectathons after Super Mario 64's success - after all, if you're gonna have people pay a premium retail price for a game, you might as well try to give them their money's worth - but N&B did a good job with giving you enough Jiggies to progress without having to do every single challenge. Besides, there were more than enough parts to improve handling, fuel, speed, and other factors to go around, and you can make vehicles that convert to different forms pretty easily. Hell, most of the time my go-to vehicle was a combat helicopter that could handle most challenges pretty well, with specially made ground vehicles for racing and other play types that were simple enough to make and maintain. You should really give it another shot sometime.
I've created a monster.
At least the logo retains some amount of semblance to the one we've known for all these years (the R shape). Really, the only offender here is the hot pink color they've chosen. If they went with a shade of blue, it would've been nice.
That's a shame. Natal looks terrible.
Sorry bud, but in order to make Rent go you have to get 200 totems, 10 eggs, 15 pieces of cheese, 79 birds, 100 dildoes, 80 puzzle pieces, and a tuna sandwich!
Serves you right for making such a great LP, Hen. Like I said, they have a whole bunch of different versions of the new logo at the ready, as can be seen here, but I don't think any of them include the old blue n' gold people love so much. Again, it's rebranding. Like how Nickelodeon changed their "splat" logo to a simple orange-and-lowercase one recently. Companies change focus, and their identifications change to reflect that.
EDIT: . . . Well played, sir. You win . . . for now!
That doesn't really apply to Nuts and bolts though. All you collect is notes and jiggies. Everything else is bought or awarded. Banjo-tooie? definitely.
Donkey Kong Country 1-3, GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, Star Fox Adventures
But they've had their misses too IMO: Perfect Dark (XBLA version, anyways), the Viva Pinata games, Kameo, BK Nuts and Bolts
As for the new logo, I don't like it right now, but I doubt I'll even care in a year. Just like with Konami's.
Nuts and Bolts isn't based on racing or time attacks. It's vehicle-based platforming for the most part.
Also, the Giant Bomb review of N&B perfectly sums up my feelings on the game: http://www.giantbomb.com/banjo-kazooie-nuts-bolts-review/17-110/
A pink logo? Ummm okay then.
I still remember, while enjoying PD XBLA, realizing that they hadn't made anything I liked in nearly a decade. It was a weird feeling.
At least PD XBLA is awesome. If they actually follow through on making a new PD game that doesn't suck, those two things alone could be enough to redeem them for me.
If they get gimmicky Natal in my PD sequel, they will be dead to me.
This is the weirdest fucking hit and miss list ever.
Seriously DKC 3 and Star Fox adventures are huge misses. Tooie is debateable but it's denfinitely bloated compared to the other two Banjo console games . Also Viva pinata is awesome.
The reason for that is that Unbreakable is a cybernetic being with one and only one reason to exist... to have horrible taste.
Tooie is huge, but I wouldn't quite say it was bloated. They use the hugeness to great effect, and the interconnectivity through the levels actually keeps the game on a more managable level.
The demo should've included the ability to totally break any mission with the garage...how the game intended.
Bolts one flaw to me was that it should have been more exploration and boss focuses with challenges limited to a few races and transport segments.
Those levels were huge but almost completely empty. Part of it was so they could make you go from A to B and have the time limit seem imposing . It got boring and there was little reason to explore them at all
In which all the side quests are racing time attack levels.
DKC 3 is an awesome game and you are wrong, it's no DKC 2 but it is still one of the best platformers on the system
Well, except LOST
There were certainly races, but there was also combat, golf, sheep herding, trick riding, sumo wrestling, darts, etc.. Nuts & Bolts wasn't hurting for variety of things to do.
I will forgive them if they bring back Cinder.
You have to admit though, EVERYTHING was some sort of time attack challenge.
The rest of their stuff was terrible or just re-releases of previous stuff.
Now they've been shuffled into a corner by MS and turned forcefully into a Natal and avatar division. A terrible fate for a previously fantastic developer.
What does the bottom of a Avatar's shoe look like indeed.
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Shadow of the Colossus was an okay game, but it would have been much better if you could get to every Colossi by walking down a narrow corridor for 20 seconds.
Nuts & Bolts was pretty sweet. You should check it out if you haven't yet (ignore the godawful demo).
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I want to play a Banjo game, not Legoland guest starring Banjo. *whistles innocently*
:P
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