Its like playing the original Banjo-Kazooie, but with vehicles. A game that no one should pass up!
This game plays just like its predecessors on the N64. There are six worlds, where you must obtain all the jiggies, find all the jinjos and collect all the music notes. But instead of walking around with Banjo, or flying with Kazooie, you use vehicles. The six worlds are enormous and the use of vehicles is almost mandatory. There is so much to explore, I was very surprised and liked that i could create whatever type pf vehicle I wanted to explore these amazing worlds. These worlds are amazing, mainly because of how they are put together. There are so many sub-sections in these worlds. Its fun to explore and find these "secret" places. Also the graphics are quite stunning, especially if you have an HDTV. The music, is recycled from the past two games, but I loved it. It was all very nostalgic. It brought me back to my younger years, and how much time I put into the original Banjo-Kazooie. This game also has a lot of worth to it. Its only $40, and i spent almost 50 hours getting everything in the game. There are over 100 challenges overall. The jiggy challenges are mainly fun, but some of them are very difficult and take numerous tries. Instead of just finding the jinjos, you must fund them, and then complete a challenge they have for you. The challenges are fairly similar, it varies from a traditional race, finding a missing item, or even fighting a boss. The notes are easier to find than in the other older games, but they can still be a little frustrating to get every single one.
There are a few things that turned me off though. Personally, i would've preferred to have a game similar to Banjo-Kazooie, or Banjo-Tooie. I didn't mind collecting the numerous things. I thought it was really fun. This game still had plenty to collect, but it wasnt the same as the older games. The whole vehicle thing was ok, but sometimes it got annoying to have to create a new vehicle for several different challenges. Speaking of the challenges, a lot of them were very frustrating. Especially the ones toward the end of the game. They would take a long time to beat. And trying to create the perfect vehicle for the challenge was frustrating. I didn't have this problem, but I dont think its fair that Rare made the text so small. I tried playing it on a standard tv, and it was way to hard to read it. But once i put on the HDTV it was a lot better.
If you liked any of the previous banjo games, you should at least rent it. It still has the classic charm the older games had (it still has the humor too!) The vehicles might turn some people off, but I feel like it was necessary in this huge game. If you play it for awhile you will get use to the vehicles. Thank you Rare for bringing back the Banjo series in a new and exciting way. Now lets hope they make another sometime in the future.