Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is the sequel to Banjo Tooie. However, while the previous installments in the franchise were platforming games in every sense of the word, this new Banjo Kazooie focuses on creating custom vehicles and then using them in various challenges peppered throughout the game worlds.

The game starts out with Banjo and a chicken called Kazooie that lives in his backpack enjoying life. They are lazy and fat, but it beats having to face off against their nemesis, the nefarious witch Gruntilda. However, Gruntilda feels like challenging them yet again, but before the scene escalates, the Lord of Games shows up and pauses the game. The L.O.G. is a TV that has pong being played on it, and he's also the self-proclaimed creator of every game in existence. L.O.G. presents the witch and the bear with a challlenge. They must fight a final time, with the deeds to Spiral Mountain, Banjo's home, at stake. A pointless race later, L.O.G. decides that wasn't very good, so he dumps them both into Showdown town, the game's hub world.

It's from there that the actual game begins. Banjo gets a quick slimming charm put over him, and then you start getting introduced to the game's characters. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is entirely text-based, and honestly, it works way better than spoken dialogue ever would. The game is rather hilarious, and it constantly busts down the fourth wall, with the "Lord of Games" being just the start. It's impossible not to laugh at some of the dialogue and situations, and starting up missions is great, because you'll be wondering what kind of whacky reason the characters will have this time to send you out on yet another quest.

And there are plenty of quests in this game. The game essentially has 6 worlds for you to explore. You've got the hub world, Showdown town, that has plenty to do and find, and 5 other worlds that'll open up when you bank jiggies. Jiggies are golden jiggsaw pieces that you get from completing a mission. One of the 5 mission worlds, Spiral Mountain only serves as prologue and epilogue, so there are four true game worlds. Each world is broken up into 6 chapters, and they all have between 1 to 7 missions to win jiggies.

The amount of variety is exceptional here, with just about every single mission having an unique twist to it. You'll be racing, knocking around domino blocks, protecting characters, attempting to take out germs, collecting and much, much more. You'll occasionally face off against Grunty as well, who will use a different vehicle component in every one of her battles, and once you beat her, you'll get that part for your Showdown Town trolley, which will then allow you to reach new areas in the hub world.

The worlds all look fantastic, but the last one, Terrarium of Terror is absurdly difficult to navigate, no matter what kind of vehicle you use. Still, this game has fantastic graphics. They are really colourful, something you may appreciate if you are one of the people that have grown bored with the grey and brown lots of games seem to love these days.

The real star of the show is the vehicle creator though. Each challenge has a specific goal, and you must quickly learn how to slap together effective vehicles suited for the task at hand. You'll rack up alot of parts over the course of the game, and after a while, you can make some truly crazy vehicles if you are dedicated enough. Just looking at the leaderboard replays to see how players have created the perfect vehicles for a specific task is impressive and inspiring. You'll need to get into the vehicle creation system if you want to get most of the enjoyment out of the game.

The online in this game is average. This game definitely seems designed to be a singleplayer experience, which is not really a bad thing. That said, I really didn't spend much time with the online, but the singleplayer is the main draw. Don't get this game if you're looking for a social online experience.

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a really fun game, and it definitely has lasting value. You'll spend quite a bit of time getting everything there is to find in this game. Overall, I can recommend it to just about anyone looking for a solid and really funny singleplayer experience.