Dire. Although perhaps I should start off with the good points: It isn’t a cheap Rare collect-a-thon. That’s about it. Graphics are good, but aside from having quite a bit going on (some of the time), they’re not very impressive for a supposedly “next-gen” machine. Like the other demos I’ve played, this might change with other levels, but you’d think they’d try and make the demo look good, yes? All of the textures look wrong somehow – too shiny, or …
It’s not a Banjo-Kazooie game. It’s not a proper platformer, you have none of the abilities that made Banjo-Kazooie different to other platformers of it’s day, and it plays like a confused mess. Sorry, Rare, but once again you seem to have forgotten how to make games. Either you do a Banjo platformer, or you do Nuts & Bolts sans Banjo and Kazooie. What you’ve got here is a mishmash of illfitting game elements, in Banjo paint. You’ve alienated those …
Amazingly, this didn’t turn out to be pants like I was expecting. OK, so it doesn’t feel like a game that has been in development for, what, 40 years? And it isn’t quite as hack-everything as the previews seemed to suggest. And there’s a story (about technologically advanced Nordic Gods or something) too. Rough edges include the lack of proper camera control, The Kameo Effect on far too many surfaces, and some minor animation problems, but I had fun for …
This is a great game! The graphics have that bizarre shiny-sticky-plastic look to them that plagued Kameo, but it doesn’t matter here. People have likened Marble Blast to Super Monkey Ball, but they’re not really all that similar. Marble Blast‘s levels are more maze-like, with jumps and power-ups, whereas Monkey Ball is all skill and speed. There’s no time limits here, although levels have a “par time” to beat. Some levels have gems to collect, and gravity direction switches too …