Nuts & Bolts is much more than the sum of its own Nuts & Bolts and offers a very refreshing experience.
Pros:Beautiful Visuals,Great Vehicle creation mode,Great soundtrack,Great lifespan,Original
Cons: Some ground vehicles can be difficult to control
Ok so first impressions of this game may leave platforming fans a bit at a loss to what has happened to their beloved bear and bird. Surely taking two of the most iconic videogame characters from the N64 era and putting them in an Xbox 360 game with less platforming and what could best be described as a Lego box-esque creation system on steroids would be a disaster right? Well. . . On paper it may sound a little concerning, however Rare definitely know how to make a videogame, and this game will leave you wondering where the hell the duo have been for 8 years! Having defeated Gruntilda the witch twice in previous games and leaving her as little less than an angry skull, our heroes have 'let themselves go' a little, for want of a better term. They are now a pair of fat couch potatoes with very little to do. Of course this wouldn't make for an interesting game without something crazy happening. This is where L.O.G (Lord of Games) comes in. After a decidedly weird entrance, L.O.G proposes a challenge to the Bear and Witch; Banjo will have to traverse six worlds equipped with a magical wrench while Grunty tries to stop him. The winner gets the deeds to Spiral Mountain whereas the loser becomes a slave to the Lord of Games' video game factory. Only in a Rare game! So, the aim of the game is to go through each world collecting Jiggies and building wacky vehicles to best suit the wide range of challenges the game has to offer. These span from the expected races and delivery missions, to the slightly more insane challenges; such as battling a certain inflatable dragon and collecting giant nuts with a vacuum cleaner! The Jiggies you collect for completing these challenges allow you to open up new worlds. The way the challenges reward you can best be described as a Gold, Silver, Bronze system. Achieve the top score bracket available and you will be rewarded with a T.T trophy, on top of a Jiggy and some notes, lower score brackets will find you earn a Jiggy and some notes or just some notes alone. Collect 4 T.T trophies and you will earn yourself an extra Jiggie.
Aside from the main challenges there are plenty of side missions including the Jinjo challenges, where you complete tasks in order to gain Jinjo tokens for use at King Jingalings bingo and the old school Klungo Arcade where you complete a number of 8bit style levels to 'SAVE TEH UNIVERSSSEE'
While earning Jiggies will unlock you new worlds to explore and new parts to play with, the notes you can earn or collect act as the games currency and whereas in previous games you were encouraged to collect them, here they serve solely as currency and are optional if you feel inclined to buy a particular part or blueprint to use in the games fantastic creation mode.
The creation mode has been lovingly crafted and with the huge amount of parts on offer, it allows you to build almost anything you can imagine. The only requirement for building a vehicle is that you give Banjo somewhere to sit before you surround him in fuel tanks, jet engines, wings, fluffy dice and missile launchers etc. The truly great thing about this mode is that it allows for some very interesting creations yet is very user friendly and easy to use, resulting in it complementing the challenges in the sense that it allows many different approaches to objectives.
Another highlight of the game comes in the form of a great online multiplayer. This allows you to show off your creations online and pit insane contraptions against one another to complete a variety of challenges taken and adapted from the single player game, as well as some exclusive online ones. The majority of games online are lag free and great fun. Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts is a fantastic change of pace for the Bear and Bird and hopefully suggests they will be making more regular appearances in the videogame limelight, this game retains all the cheeky charm of the Banjo universe; fun, beautiful to look at and very original, it is easy to recommend this to anyone with a taste for silly fun.