March2020
Poll Box Art Brawl #34 - Perfect Dark
Yeah, we know it's Japan
Welcome back to Box Art Brawl, the weekly vote where you decide which retro regional box art variant wins in the beauty stakes according to sophisticated modern tastes. Oh yes. Last week Castlevania for the N64 entered the ring in a third appearance for the series and one of the closest fought brawls to date. In the end...
February2020
News Go Behind The Scenes Of GoldenEye 007 With This Upcoming Documentary
"I remember saying to the team, it's all downhill from here"
GoldenEye 007 is without a doubt one of the most influential video games of all time. While it certainly wasn't the first FPS title to find mainstream success – we'd already seen DOOM by the time it arrived – it popularised the genre on consoles and added layers of depth, such as...
News Rare Developer Elaborates On Conker's 'Tonal Shift' From Twelve Tales To Bad Fur Day
From the mouth of The Great Mighty Poo himself
As many Nintendo fans from the N64 era already know, the foul-mouthed and filthy Conker's Bad Fur Day began life as a cutesy platformer before changing lanes and becoming an over-18-only affair full of innuendo, naughty words and wee. Plenty of titbits related the game have come to light over the years...
Random Storm Ciara Decapitates A Rare Video Gaming Legend
"So I got you there once more, I knew your skill was very poor!"
Those of you based in the UK will no doubt be counting the cost of Storm Ciara, which has done its best to batter the British Isles over the past few days. High winds and lashings of rain have caused disruption all over the country, from power cuts, cancelled trains,
Random Banjo-Kazooie Was Actually Named After A Nintendo President's Grandchild And Son
Case closed
Last year in March, there was a story doing the rounds about Rare's famous bear and bird from the 1998 Nintendo 64 game Banjo-Kazooie being named after the grandchild and son of the former Nintendo president, Hiroshi Yamauchi. History suggested that Banjo's name was based on a musical instrument of the same name, and Kazooie's name was...
January2020
News Rare Explains How It Worked With Nintendo On Super Smash Bros. Ultimate's Banjo-Kazooie DLC
"We ended up with something that was really great"
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate has given us plenty of cool surprises when it comes to DLC characters, but the addition of Banjo and Kazooie has been perhaps the most noteworthy. While the dynamic animal duo is famous for two critically-acclaimed N64 adventures, when Rare was bought by Microsoft the...
December2019
Feature GoldenEye Dev David Doak On Shaking (And Stirring) The FPS Genre On Console
"All we could see were the bad things"
You couldn’t escape it. It was here, rife and potent. It ploughed a path through conventional gaming conversations from the casuals to the parents of gamers that had to put up with the noise, the screaming and the not going to bed because if you didn’t kill John with thirty-seven remote mines stuck to the...
Random Rare Forgot To Remove A Shotgun From Donkey Kong 64 Before Showing Miyamoto
There was a "look of horror" on his face
Last month, Donkey Kong 64 turned 20 years old. Since then, the development team behind the game has been doing the press rounds to celebrate the anniversary. During a recent interview with Games Radar, one of the creative leads George Andreas recalled a horrifying moment when Rare was showing the game to...
November2019
Random If Cranky Kong Was Once Donkey Kong, What Does The Future Hold For Funky Kong?
DK devs weigh in
With Donkey Kong Country turning 25 last week and soaking up the lion's share of the anniversary headlines, we thought we'd give its younger sibling a chance to shine. Donkey Kong 64 celebrated its 20th birthday on 22nd November and we caught up with Mark Stevenson and
Poll Box Art Brawl #18 - Donkey Kong 64
Walnuts, peanuts, pineapple smells
He-he-here we go! It's time for Box Art Brawl, our weekly look at which region got the best box art of a particular retro release. Last week the North American version of Ninja Gaiden on the NES absolutely trounced the competition, with the Japanese variant a distant second and Europe left stumbling in a daze...
Feature Donkey Kong 64 Devs On Bugs, Boxing And 20 Years Of The DK Rap
Put your hands together if you want to clap
In the last few days we've had a spate of video game anniversaries with Pokémon Gold and Silver, Super Smash Bros., Donkey Kong Country and
News Playtonic's Steve Mayles Releases Special Donkey Kong Country Artwork To Mark Its 25th Birthday
As other staffers share mementoes from the period
Donkey Kong Country turned 25 yesterday, an event which is sure to have made many of us feel very old indeed. To celebrate the anniversary, Playtonic's Steve Mayles – who worked on the game during his tenure at Rare – has posted a special piece of artwork showcasing the game's heroes: Mayles...
Anniversary Feel Old Everyone, Donkey Kong Country Turns 25 Today
And the birthdays keep on comin'!
Hmm. It's almost like video games themselves are conspiring to make us feel our age recently. Earlier this week Super Smash Bros. turned 20 in the PAL region, and today we posted about Pokémon Gold and Silver re
Poll Box Art Brawl #16 - Banjo-Tooie
Bear-and-Bird-based brawling
Come one, come all - we're about to begin the Box Art Brawl! Yes, welcome back to the weekly battle where we throw three versions of box art from the same game into a ring to determine which one wins the beauty pageant and which one(s) deserves to be boxed up forever. Last week Super Mario took on his continental...
October2019
Random Rare Expands Its Official Banjo-Kazooie Swag Collection With A Colourful Keychain
Feast your googly eyes on these
After many years stuck out in the video gaming wilderness, the return of mighty duo Banjo-Kazooie had one or two of us at Nintendo Life Towers shedding a tear when they were revealed to be joining the fray with the other Smash Bros. fighters. IP owners Microsoft might not be doing anything Rareware's bear and bird,...
September2019
Poll Box Art Brawl #10 - GoldenEye 007
You can never unsee it
Welcome, one and all, to Box Art Brawl! We’ve reached the tenth round in the series where we present a bunch of box art variants and then put it to you lovely people to see which one prevails in the ensuing bout. In an effort to showcase some of the dross that will never make it to this hallowed arena, we took a midweek look...
Fancy listening?
Reflect on the glory days of Rare and a few names you might remember include graphic designer Kevin Bayliss and composer David Wise. Both of these talented individuals helped shape a number of the developer's titles over the years. While they've both moved on, it appears they'll be collaborating on an "exciting new project" that...
Random Sakurai Tells Nintendo Fans To Check Out The Original Banjo-Kazooie On Xbox One
Seriously.
During the special Banjo-Kazooie presentation today, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate director Masahiro Sakurai explained how Microsoft was more than happy for the bear and bird to join Nintendo's all-star brawler. Sakurai himself was "extremely grateful" and also noted how Rare welcomed the idea with open arms. With the iconic duo now...
August2019
News Conker's Creator Doesn't Think There Would Be As Much Noise For Other Rare IP On Switch
The bear and bird are the favourites
Conker’s creator, Chris Seaver, recently shared his thoughts about Banjo-Kazooie being announced as a playable DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate on the Switch. While he believes it was a “significant” moment, he doesn't think there would be as much interest in the return of other Rare IP: It is...
July2019
News Banjo-Kazooie Composer Grant Kirkhope Doesn't Know If There's A Market For A New Game
"I just don't know"
Around the time of E3 2019, when it was revealed Banjo-Kazooie would be added as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the composer of the bear and bird's original Nintendo 64 outing spoke with VGC about the possibility of a new entry in the series. In a more recent interview with the same website, the one and only...
Random Valve Supposedly Made Changes To Half-Life After Playing GoldenEye 007
Inspiring a generation
Reflect on the Nintendo 64 era and one game that will probably come to mind is Rare’s GoldenEye 007. It was considered to be a revolutionary take on the first-person genre in more ways than one. In fact, even the developer and publisher Valve Corporation took inspiration from Bond’s 64-bit outing at the time. As explained...
June2019
News Banjo-Kazooie's Smash Bros. Reveal Was One Of The "Biggest" Moments In Grant Kirkhope's Career
Up there with Mario + Rabbids
In a recent interview with the YouTube channel Shesez, Banjo-Kazooie composer Grant Kirkhope was asked about how he felt when he heard his music in the character reveal trailer for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and how it compared to his other career highlights. According to the living legend himself, it’s on par with...
Feature We Don’t Want To Be Shackled To Our Rare Past, Says Yooka-Laylee Studio Playtonic
"Everything we do from this point on is a brand-new concept for us"
A lot has happened since we last had the good fortune to visit Playtonic Games. The previous time we popped by the studio's offices outside the rural English town of Burton-on-Trent (acclaimed actor Paddy Considine was born and still lives there, fact fans), the team was still in...
News Phil Spencer Says Microsoft Had No Problem With Banjo-Kazooie Appearing In Smash Bros. Ultimate
The two companies are on "great" terms
Following the official reveal of Banjo-Kazooie as a DLC fighter for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer caught up with Kotaku to discuss how exactly the Microsoft and Rare-owned character was able to make an appearance in the popular Nintendo fighter. According to Spencer, the story isn't as...
News Grant Kirkhope Explains How He Got To Compose Banjo-Kazooie Music For Smash Bros. Ultimate
The Mario + Rabbids creative director got in contact
Not long after Banjo-Kazooie was revealed for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate during Nintendo's E3 2019 Direct presentation, VGC reached out to the composer, Grant Kirkhope, to hear his side of the story and find out what it was like create music for Nintendo's all-star fighting game. It all started...
