Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is the third game in the series, taking place eight years after the events of Banjo-Tooie. It was announced at Microsoft's X06 in 2006 at Barcelona, Spain and released on November 11, 2008. Before the name was finalized, the game was commonly referred to as Banjo-Threeie.

Plot
Set 8 years after Banjo-Tooie, the plot of the game involves Banjo and Gruntilda competing to determine the true owner of Spiral Mountain. Banjo wishes to preserve his home while Gruntilda hatches an urban development scheme to replace the vegetated area with towers and malls. A new character named Lord of Games (also known as LOG) attempts to settle the conflict between the two by devising a series of worlds and challenges. LOG transports the other characters to Showdown Town, his headquarters, and starts the contest. The winner would be set to own Spiral Mountain; the loser must endure eternal hardship working at LOG's video game factory. While Banjo and Kazooie seek to win by completing the challenges, Grunty uses a slew of vehicles she presumably has built, as well as an army of mechanical Gruntbots to stop the duo from succeeding.

thumb|300px|right|Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts Theme Song

Gameplay
The game is not a traditional third-person action and platform game like the previous entries in the series, but instead utilizes vehicles to transport Banjo and Kazooie around the levels. According to Mayles about 20 percent of the game retains traditional platforming elements. There are however no conventional "moves" for Banjo and Kazooie to use. The duo are limited to only jumping and attacking with a magical wrench while other abilities, such as firing eggs have been mapped to vehicle parts instead.

Vehicles

Vehicles play a prominent role in the game. The player can build them from over 1,600 different components available, such as body panels, engines, wheels, wings, propellers, fuel and weapons. It is also specified that vehicle presets from these parts would be available.[5] "Banjoprints" of these machines and their statistics have been revealed. They include the Banjo 4x4, Banjo Boat, Banjo Copter and Banjo Plane. Gruntilda also operates a vehicle called the Grunty Coco-Carrier.[7] The vehicles can be built in many shapes, as demonstrated in a video where one was constructed to resemble an 8-bit Mario sprite that was later blasted apart.

Items

The original teaser trailer showed several gameplay elements from the previous games that will be included in the upcoming game, including music notes, honeycombs, and puzzle pieces ("Jiggys"). The Jiggys are among several golden objects that are collected to progress in the Banjo-Kazooie games and will once again be used in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. In an edition of Scribes, Rare said that "the player will determine the difficulty level by how they approach the Jiggy tasks", hinting at what the game would offer.[8] It was later specified that the challenge level of these tasks depends on how the player builds the vehicles. Other items include honeycomb pieces, which are used to refill Banjo and Kazooie's health gauges in the games. Musical notes can be collected in Banjo-Kazooie to unlock note doors, and in Banjo-Tooie were used to unlock new moves for Banjo and Kazooie. In Nuts & Bolts notes are used as a currency and can be used to buy many things. These include vehicle parts and blueprints from Humba Wumba’s shop in Showdown Town, tips from Bottles, black-market Jiggys from Jolly Roger, bribes for the police force and powered up abilities, such as increased speed and lifting ability from Boggy. There are three different types of notes that are worth different amounts. From greatest to least they are gold, silver, and copper. A new item, tentatively called "Mumbo's magic wrench" is also used in the game. It plays a significant role, as it is used to both build and move objects via a yellow beam fired from the device. The wrench is also used by Kazooie as a primary weapon for on-foot gameplay, which allows the breegull to attack nearby enemies by spinning around in a circle from inside Banjo’s backpack.

Abilities

Various abilities from Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie will not be at Banjo and Kazooie's disposal for Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. This approach was first mentioned in the December 20 of Rare's Scribes column, which stated, "Banjo and Kazooie haven't got many of the abilities that they used in previous games".[8] The ability introduced in Banjo-Tooie to split up Banjo and Kazooie as separate playable characters will be unavailable in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. A previous Scribes mentioned that they "thought about using two different controllers" to account for the new moves and all the old moves as well, but that a simpler system had been used for the game. It was eventually revealed that the approach involves using vehicles instead of the previous attack moves. According to Rare, the in-game explanation is that most of the older abilities were forgotten after eight years of not using them and LOG did not allow the duo to remember them. The only move you can still do are the Grip Grab (no attack), Swim (Banjo only), Climb, and Single Jump. The Magic Wrench is used as a new attack, for the platforming elements of the game.

The player can disembark from a vehicle and explore the environment in a manner similar to that of the previous games. In a screenshot, Banjo and Kazooie are seen walking on a tightrope crossing a river.

Multiplayer

The idea of multiplayer options was first discussed at the Rare Witch Project, where Mayles said that there would be multiplayer capability in the game unlike that found in Banjo-Tooie. He also noted that there would not be any first-person shooter sections in the traditional action-adventure game. It was later revealed that multiplayer will be purely vehicle-based where players will be able to take their custom built vehicles to Xbox Live and compete in online races and activities.[6] An announcement stated that the game features a co-operative mode and offline multiplayer options.

Features

 * Multiplayer has been confirmed to be a part of the new game. But it has been stated that it will not be the same as Banjo-Tooie's multiplayer. It was later revealed that multiplayer would focus on vehicle gameplay such as races and other challenges.
 * Vehicles are expected to be a major part of the game. There have been many screenshots released displaying images including blueprints. Some vehicles are:
 * Banjo 4x4 (4 wheel drive)
 * Banjo plane
 * Grunty Coco-Carrier
 * Banjo Copter
 * Banjo Boat
 * Minimaps and a world map have been included in many screenshots and videos.

Returning Characters
A "small" number of characters have been announced.
 * Banjo
 * Kazooie
 * Gruntilda
 * Mumbo Jumbo
 * Humba Wumba
 * Jolly Roger
 * Bottles
 * King Jingaling
 * Captain Blubber
 * Jinjos
 * Weldar
 * Clanker
 * Tanktup
 * Loggo
 * Mr. Patch
 * "The snowman from Freezeezy Peak"
 * Bawl
 * Klungo
 * Jamjars(voice only)
 * Mr. Fit
 * Boggy
 * Golden Goliath
 * George Ice Cube
 * Mildred Ice Cube
 * Dingpot
 * Cheato
 * Minjo
 * Targitzan
 * Glowbo

New Characters

 * Pikelet
 * Trophy Thomas
 * Lord of Games (LOG)
 * Piddles

Worlds & Levels
Many levels have been introduced in BK:N&B, many new, while some old levels from previous games being redesigned in a whole new way.

Rare has announced that there will be 5 new levels (not including Showdown Town and Spiral Mountain) featuring 15 challenges. The new levels will now be inside artificially created spheres that will appear to be a dome while inside the world. Like the other console games, the levels can be accessed from the hub world and themed music will play when neared. Each world features several "acts", where the characters have been moved around and have new challenges to give. Each world has its own intro that plays when you enter the world for the first time.
 * Showdown Town - The new hub world.
 * Nutty Acres - An artificial grassland level, on a tropical island (includes a coconut farm and a volcano).
 * LOGBOX 720 - A level that resembles the inside of a video game console (obviously the Xbox 360).
 * Banjoland - A museum of levels, people, and scenery from the first 2 games.
 * Jiggoseum - A level taking place in a large colosseum that is themed around sports.
 * Terrarium of Terror - A space-themed level, taking place in a series of domes filled with overgrown plants.
 * Spiral Mountain - The original hub world for Banjo-Kazooie.

Easter Eggs
During the game, you will see a lot of things that are references to other Rare games, consoles, and gaming things such as:
 * Kazooie is playing an XBOX 360 in the opening movie.
 * A Lickitoad from Viva Pinata appears in the game. It appears as a vehicle part named "Papery Pal", and L.O.G. turns Banjo into it once.
 * In the aforementioned Papery Pal's description, Mumbo says that, "Trouble in Paradise is good game. Mumbo recommend player buy it tomorrow." Trouble in Paradise is the 2nd Viva Pinata game.
 * When LOG announces himself as the grand creator of all video games, Kazooie responds with "Even ones that don't sell very well, like Ghoulies?", a reference to the fact that the Rare game, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, was a large commercial failure.
 * LOG tells Banjo and Kazooie that they're failures. Kazooie says that they've been in lots of games, to which LOG says the they haven't been in nearly as many games as "that Italian gentleman", an obvious reference to Mario.
 * When you're building a vehicle with a tray, it contains a Viva Pinata frog, 5 Grabbed By the Ghoulies video games, and a skeleton arm from ''Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
 * When you first arrive at Klungo's Arcade, Klungo tells you about his game, and claims he is a big star, and he is "bigger star than Massster Chef...", a reference to Master Chief from Halo.
 * One of LOG's random quotes says that he invented the first person shooter and regretted it, then he mentions "a certain Space Marine", most likely referencing iD's DOOM or possibly Halo.
 * There are many game disks to be found in LOGBOX 720, including Viva Pinata, It's Mr. Pants, and Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
 * At one point, Banjo mentions that he once was in a race with "a genie and a giant pig", a reference to Diddy Kong Racing (the genie is Taj and the pig is Wizpig)
 * In Banjoland, floating in the large lake, there is a Grabbed By The Ghoulies case behind the Test of Strength cactus and Cloud Cuckooland's Garbage Bin is filled to the brim with copies.
 * In the Jiggoseum, there is a scoreboard marquee sitting at the top of the colosseum, which shows fake scores from fake sports teams (the teams are named after Banjo characters, and there's even one named "Twycross Athletic", which is where Rare is based). Eventually, it will read, "Is anyone actually reading this?"
 * The achievement for unlocking the space-themed level, Terrarium of Terror, is known as "Super Banjo Universe", a play on the title of the Mario game set in space, "Super Mario Galaxy".
 * The Nintendo 64 can be seen in the beginning of the game.
 * While on Spiral Mountain in the games begining if you jump in the large dumpster you can see pictures of a fudgehog and a ghoulie
 * In the background of Showdown Town, you can see a mansion in the distance. The mansion is the one from Grabbed by the Ghoulies.
 * One of the parts is named "Fulgore's Fist" Fulgore, which was the name of a fighter in Killer Instinct, an arcade fighting game by Rare which was also ported to the SNES

References to Pop Culture
During one of the Jinjo hurling challenges the Jinjo calls himself Hurley and tells Banjo and Kazooie that he's lost on the island, an obvious reference to the TV show LOST.

Trailers
The Teaser and Official trailers. UaKtkOWu5fQ OzPigWbB2kI

For more videos on Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, please see the Nuts & Bolts playlist on our YouTube channel here.

Sequel
Gavin Price, multiplayer designer of Banjo-Kazooie : Nuts & Bolts in rare, was also interviewed and of which he and the team would like Banjo-Fourie on Xbox 360, after the issue of Banjo-fan -- Threeie coming November 14-18, 2008.

To quote him: "We are still thinking of a lot of other new features and I think we were told 'you going to do a sequel' then there would be a hell of a lot just new ideas." Filecchio Savior, the programmer, who has been with the original Banjo-Tooie team echoed: "Yes, lots!" Neil Harrison, lead technical artist, added: "Yes there would be a lot of stuff we like to do."

September 9th UPDATE: Rare senior animator Ellipse Miller said in an interview that "[Nuts & Bolts] is like an introduction to what we could do. If we went and did some 'of us could push it. You can was accepted and people are so we can certainly push it in one direction much greater. This is like the opening of a new type of game I think. "

Rare lead technical artist Neill Harrison added that the team has a rare few "crazy ideas" for more Banjo mechanical work, and that will "probably" expand the concept of construction for future games.

"[Lead designer] Greg has had some crazy ideas [for the next game] ... I'll probably get in trouble if I mentioned them," added Harrison. "I think if [Nuts & Bolts] was successful, we certainly had a load of ideas for what could be done with the same kind of concept but expand it out.

So, what next for Rare? Outside of the new Xbox 360 avatars, who are working on unannounced games. Schuneman Lee, director of manufacturing a rare, says: "Usually it is probably in about four or five titles, so there is certainly some that we have not yet spoken. And some of those who perhaps never will, because Sometimes we try out ideas and do not always come out on the market, but there's a good few. "

Anyone care to guess what a few? Perhaps it is Killer Instinct 3 and Jet Force Gemini 2 that are not working.

Screenshots
16 screenshots were scheduled to be shown at Microsoft's annual Gamer's Day but were leaked early and are shown below. The last five are "banjoprints" (blueprints) for new vehicles.