Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a video game that consists of 4 releases
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Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Review
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Banjo: Nuts & Bolts Quick Look
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In this new spin on the platforming genre, Banjo and Kazooie return to battle Gruntilda using unique, player customized vehicles.
Overview
Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is a vehicular-based platformer for the Xbox 360. Nuts & Bolts is the fifth game in the franchise, and is the series first console release since 2000. The game was developed by Rare's Banjo team, which had reassembled shortly before the completion of Viva Piñata in 2006. Several of the original staff have returned to work on the revival, including designer Gregg Mayles, art director Steve Mayles, and composer Grant Kirkhope.
Nuts & Bolts, released on November 11, 2008 for the budget price of US$39.99 and AU$69.95, marks the first time the Banjo-Kazooie franchise has seen an appearance on a non-Nintendo platform. A demo of the game is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace. After a one gigabyte download, players can try out the game's vehicle customization and several of the worlds available in the retail product. A special pre-order bonus allowed players to download the Xbox Live Arcade version of the original Banjo-Kazooie for the Nintendo 64.
Unfortunatley, many of the people who pre-orderd Nuts & Bolts did not get the code needed to download the N64 bonus..Plot Synopsis
Nuts & Bolts takes place eight years after Banjo-Tooie. In a dilapidated Spiral Mountain, Banjo and Kazooie have grown fat and lazy in the absence of the previous games villain, the witch Gruntilda. Despite being bested three times by Banjo and Kazooie, Gruntilda's own memory of events tells quite a different story, which causes mysterious deity Lord Of Games (LOG) to arrive in Spiral Mountain, where he procedes to transport the heroes and villain to his own domain, Showdown Town. LOG then forces a final confrontation between the heroes and Gruntilda, putting the deed to Spiral Mountain up as the winner's prize.
Gameplay
Nuts & Bolts adheres to a similar setup as previous games in the series, despite the addition of vehicles.
Basic Progression
Much of the game takes place in the hub world, equivalent to Gruntilda's Lair and the Isle o' Hags in previous titles. Each of the five levels are opened by connecting their game globe to their respective plinth in the town, which then opens a series of doors based on how many jiggies the player has collected at that point. Each door opened provides a different entrance into the same level, similar to the episodic nature of Super Mario 64.
Exploration of the town is limited to the abilities Banjo, or Banjo's vehicle, as seen in the previous game's hub worlds.
Banjo CopterVehicle Creation
While past Banjo-Kazooie games have been traditional 3D platformers, Nuts & Bolts, through the use of the game's vehicle creation mode, has been designed to allow the player a higher degree of choice when attempting to complete the game's various tasks. On top of the previous collectible items such as jiggies and notes, the game's worlds contain a host of vehicle parts available for use in the construction of the vehicles, culminating in a totaling over 1,000 parts. Over the course of the game, the player will be tasked with various challenges that can be solved in a variety of ways, depending on what vehicle the player chooses to create. Upon completion of challenges the player is awarded a ranking that relates to the time taken to complete the challenge, the score attained, or a host of other factors. When the player successfully completes a boss battle with Grutilda, they will be awarded a key component upgrade to their Showdown Town vehicle, allowing the player access to different areas of Showdown Town.
The creation tool gives extensive control over nearly every aspect of the vehicle in the workshop. Blocks of various shapes and sizes can be used to build the chassis, while a wide variety of wheels, treads, engines, propellers, rockets, and wings, allow the player to create vehicles that operate on land, sea, air, or combinations of all three. Every choice the player makes in the workshop will have an effect on how a vehicle handles, the vehicle's speed, ammo amount, fuel store, and durability.
Levels
Showdown Town
Nutty Acres
The first world in the game that contains; an ocean, a marvelous beach, many rolling hills, and a large mountain that is home to a piping hot volcano. Along with the picuresque landscape the world contains many characters, both new and old, to keep Banjo busy completing a variety of tasks.
LOGBOX 720
This world is a giant computer filled with RAM, many memory connection cables, a cooling system, and its very own mother board to power the entire world. Banjo's friends and enemies are there to help him log some time in this computer.
Banjoland
Jiggosseum
This world is modeled after the ancient roman colosseum and is filled with many physically straining challenges for Banjo to conquer. Gruntilda even has a little fun with this level, turning the Jiggosseum into a giant water polo court.
Terrarium of Terror
This world is filled with overgrown plants filling a set of domes floating in the middle of space.Characters
The main protagonists of Nuts & Bolts, Banjo does the jumping and driving, while Kazooie picks up objects and activates switches using the magical wrench given to her by Mumbo.
Banjo and Kazooie's archnemesis from the previous games in the franchise, Gruntilda is yet again the villian in Nuts & Bolts. During one act of every world (with the exception of two showdowns in The Jiggoseam) Gruntilda makes an appearance. After defeating her, L.O.G. will bestow Banjo with a new part for the trolley in Showdown Town, allowing Banjo to reach new areas within the hubworld.
- The Lord of Games (a.k.a. L.O.G.)
The creator of Showdown Town, as well as the creator of video games, L.O.G. is the one who pits Banjo-Kazooie and Gruntilda against each other in a battle for the deed to Spiral Mountain.
Mumbo is the magical owner of Mumbo's Motors where Banjo is able to go to build and test new vehicle creations. While searching Showdown Town, Banjo my come across parts crates, which can be taken to Mumbo to unlock their contents. At the begging of the game Mumbo gives Kazooie a magical wrench that allows her to pick up objects and fix vehicles if they have been damaged.
Mumbo's wife, Humba, runs a shop in Showdown Town where Banjo can buy parts or vehicle blueprints. She also makes a hilarious appearance in LobBox 720 as a member of the "Hag Dolls" a girl gamer group that pokes fun at Ubisoft's real life "Frag Dolls".
- Bottles
Bottles
Bottles is back from the dead, and in addition to making a number of hilarious cameos in the worlds, he also runs an information shop in the town square of Showdown Town. For a price he will show Banjo several spots of interest within Showdown Town, reveal the combination to unlock trapdoor tower number two, and give Banjo information on Stop 'an Swop crates.
No longer Grunty's bumbling side-kick, Klungo is now the bumbling owner of an arcade, where Banjo is able to play an old-school arcade game featuring Klungo. The game features five levels, the last of which is unlocked after Banjo banks thirty jiggies.
A grog swigging captain who's flying saucer has crash landed in Showdown Town, Captain Blubber will give Banjo the combination to one of the trapdoors, in exchange for a donation to help him with his current financial situation.
This difficult to find merchant can usually be found somewhere around Klungo's arcade. The crafty businessman holds five Jiggies that can be purchased from his for a price.
The health concious anteater can be found running through Showdown Town in a none-to-flatering track jacket. If Banjo manages to catch the jogger during one of his breaks, he can purchase a trapdoor tower combination from his for ten notes.
- Pikelet
Pikelet the Pig
The ornery captain of the Showdown Town Police Force, Pikelet will complain about "trouble-makers" who are ruining Showdown Town. Confusing Jinjos with Minjos, Pikelet has accidentally locked up six innocent Jinjos throughtought Showdown Town. Banjo can find and free these unfortunate souls, who in return will present Banjo with a gift of notes. Pikelet's police force is constantly changing the laws of Showdown Town, but if Banjo finds himself in trouble with the law, Pikelet won't refuse a bribe towards his donut fund, and he will call off his annoying officers.
Boggy is the out-of-shape propeitor of Boggy's Gym, where Banjo can purchase upgrades to his strength, stamina, and speed. Just don't expect to work out with the rotund polar bear, he gets tired just speaking.
Showdown Town's resident obnoxious, ultra-competative, jock, Trophy Thomas will reward Banjo with T.T. Trophies if he completes jiggy games within the blue limit. For every four T.T. Trophies Banjo earns he will recieve a jiggy. Only 96 of the 97 T.T. Trophies need to be obtained to earn all the jiggies within the game.
- King Jiggaling
King Jiggaling runs a bingo game in Showdown Town where Banjo can win fablulous prizes such as unique vehicle parts and notes. To win, Banjo must find the Jinjos hidden throughought the five worlds. After finding the Jinjos the player must complete their challenge to win a Jinjo token. These tokens are then placed on King Jiggaling's game board. To win a prize Banjo must fill either an entire row or column with the correct Jinjo token colors.
Klungo's Arcade game
Klungo saves the World
This game can be found on the end of the peir in Showdown Town, you play as Klungo as you try to save the earth, you only have the ability to jump over and across obstacles, the game is made made by Klungo and can freeze up at any time.Klungo saves the Universe
This is the sequel to Klungo saves the world, and can be found when the DLC (LOG's Lost Challenges) are purchased. Initially when you access the DLC Klungo is still working on the game, he does not finish the game until you have collected all of the Jiggy pieces from each challenge from the DLC, this includes beating them with LOG's choice vehicle and player's choice vehicle. The sequel has you going from Mercury to Neptune. As well as your ability to jump you also have a gun, a skateboard, and there are parts of the games where the direction of gravity can be changed.Multiplayer
There are 28 games in the multiplayer, most of which are modeled off of challenges from the single player game. Players can set up a party of up to 8 players and have the ability to take pictures of other player's vehicles to obtain blueprints so they can build them for their own use.The downloadable content available for this game includes new multiplayer modes (see Downloadable content section bellow for more details).
Xbox 360 Game Installation
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts requires 6.6 GB of space to install on an Xbox 360 HDD.Downloadable Content
LOG's Lost Challenges was released on April 7th, 2009 for 400 Microsoft points ($5). It included 12 new challenges in a level set in Mumbo's Test-o-Track. The DLC will also include 7 new multiplayer modes, a new Klungo arcade game, 7 new vehicle blueprints representing the winners of Rare's Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts fan vehicle design contest, and 10 new achievements worth 250 points.
The achievments include gamerscore for finding the Lost Challenges, completing the mini jigsaw puzzle and Klungo's Arcade. There are also multiplayer achievments linked into this.
Soundtrack
It is available for purchase on CD, digitally on the company's website or on iTunes.
- The Bear and the Bird Begin
- Showdown Town Square
- Testing Times
- Let the Jiggoseum Games Begin!
- Parading the Jiggoseum
- Jiggoseum Japes
- Jiggoseum Jiggery-pokery
- Grappling with Gruntilda
- Banjoland Visitors This Way
- Discovering Banjoland
- Banjoland Buffonery
- Beating Banjoland
- The Terrarium Awaits
- Exploring the Terrarium
- Terrarium Trickery
- Test of the Terrarium
- Trial by Jinjo
- LogBox 720 - Access Granted
- Inside the LogBox
- LogBox Lunacy
- LogBox Larks
- Cruising Showdown Town
- Welcome to Nutty Acres
- Out Around Nutty Acres
- Nutty Acres Action
- Nutty Acres Aggro
- Spiral Mountain Shoutin'
- The Final Fight
| Game Name | Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts |
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| Original US Release |
Nov. 11, 2008
need a fuzzy date? |
| Original US Release |
know the real date? |
| Aliases |
Banjo-Threeie Banjo-Kazooie 3 |
| OFLC |
OFLC: G
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| CERO |
CERO: A
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| ESRB |
ESRB: E
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| PEGI |
PEGI: 7+
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Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Achievement Guide
An achievement guide for Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
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Stop 'N' Swop guide
A guide to finding all the Stop 'N' Swop items in Banjo-Kazooie for XBLA, and how to find the rewards in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.
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