I’ll start by saying that the two original Banjo-Kazooie titles remain my favorite video games of all time. That’s a very blunt statement,yes, but you have to understand the means in which I came about these two games. Wind the clocks back to Christmas 1998. I rip the wrapping paper off a rather large package and lo and behold, a brand-newNintendo 64. I didn’t have a clue about what the hell it really was,but it came with two games: Mario Kart 64 and Banjo-Kazooie. The latter happened the be the first of the two titles that I snatched up andplunged into the cartridge outlet, and Banjo-Kazooie became the firstvideogame I had ever played. I was six. Up until that time, I have noidea what I did. That kindled my love-affair with video games that lasted for years,until my interest began to fizzle out into more occasional playtime.But at that time, I was trying to get at that damn Nintendo whenever Icould, and Banjo-Kazooie was the only game I ever really played until Idiscovered the wonders of Blockbuster and rental games. Not only that,but I got my parents into the fucking thing, and we sat on the bed forhours with it. The simplistic mechanics and coloful graphics made itfun and easy, and not to mention addicting. So when the game was finally beaten, what happened? Banjo-Tooiehappened, that’s what, and almost immediately after I was over and donewith the first one. This was in 2000, a rather rough year for ourentire family. One or two deaths and my mum was in the hospital. I wasjust old enough to contemplate the emotional effects of a loss, soBanjo-Tooie helped take my mind off it all. I was once againenthralled, absorbed in the world of the bear and bird and theirplatforming adventures. Hurray, harroo. So fast-forward to 2008, with the debut of the third main title ofthe B&K series - Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. I’m obviously notas obsessed with video games as I was back when I was ten, but this wasenough to pique my interest. More than ten years after the release ofthe original game, how have the bear and bird held up? The first twogames were some of the best platformers for any current-gen system, andby the looks of it the same crew is producing this one. How on Earthcould this be a bad game, then, especially when it’s on a system nearlydevoid of good platformers in the first place? So I buy the game, plugit into my shiny new 360, and fire it all up. Well fuck me, Freddy. Now, I’m not one to jump on the whole “baaw, my dead childhood,baaw” bandwagon. But I’m baawing about this, because my stomach juststarted to twist with the first few hours I spent with this game. To start off, we have the plot of the game. Now, the concept isn’ttoo bad to begin with. We see Banjo and Kazooie, eight years sincetheir last escapade, having grown chubby and restless with nothing todo. But suddenly, antagonist Gruntilda the witch (educed to little morethan a skeleton head by her previous defeats) confronts our heroes,vowing revenge. But before that can happen, a mysterious figure knownas the Lord of Games (or LOG for short) intervenes. So when the game was finally beaten, what happened? Banjo-Tooiehappened, that’s what, and almost immediately after I was over and donewith the first one. This was in 2000, a rather rough year for ourentire family. One or two deaths and my mum was in the hospital. I wasjust old enough to contemplate the emotional effects of a loss, soBanjo-Tooie helped take my mind off it all. I was once againenthralled, absorbed in the world of the bear and bird and theirplatforming adventures. Hurray, harroo. So fast-forward to 2008, with the debut of the third main title ofthe B&K series - Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. I’m obviously notas obsessed with video games as I was back when I was ten, but this wasenough to pique my interest. More than ten years after the release ofthe original game, how have the bear and bird held up? The first twogames were some of the best platformers for any current-gen system, andby the looks of it the same crew is producing this one. How on Earthcould this be a bad game, then, especially when it’s on a system nearlydevoid of good platformers in the first place? So I buy the game, plugit into my shiny new 360, and fire it all up. Well fuck me, Freddy. Now, I’m not one to jump on the whole “baaw, my dead childhood,baaw” bandwagon. But I’m baawing about this, because my stomach juststarted to twist with the first few hours I spent with this game. To start off, we have the plot of the game. Now, the concept isn’ttoo bad to begin with. We see Banjo and Kazooie, eight years sincetheir last escapade, having grown chubby and restless with nothing todo. But suddenly, antagonist Gruntilda the witch (educed to little morethan a skeleton head by her previous defeats) confronts our heroes,vowing revenge. But before that can happen, a mysterious figure knownas the Lord of Games (or LOG for short) intervenes. The game does not control very well, especially when you’re in thevehicles. It constantly feels clunky, like you’re driving around abrick with wheels (not too far from the truth), and one wrong movesends you head-over-heels. And no matter what the size of the vehicleis, it feels like you’re driving the same thing over and over again. Sound-wise, I do commend this game. The music is one of the reasonswhy I love this series to begin with. Hell, I have tracks of the stuffon my iPod. Every level had its own unique sound and atmosphere, andthere were very few duds. While the level designs themselves reallydon’t have a lot going for them in Nuts & Bolts, the music stillshines. The orchestrated remixes of older tunes, mixed in with newones, work perfectly and sound exactly how they should in a Banjo game.I love Grant Kirkhope. I bet the guy’s farts even sound beautiful, and I’m glad they kept him for this game. Aside from the music, we’ve got the usual Banjo-esque sound effects.No voice-acting, which I find a blessing. The characters still talk viagrunts, cackles, what have you, with captions at the bottom. Might Iadd that it’s beneficial to upgrade the game online, as the text in theoriginal version is small and very hard to read. Graphically, this game looks wonderful. Now, I’m not a fan of theblocky, sleek new character designs, but for all intensive purposes Iguess it works out. The worlds are beautiful, especially the renditionof Spiral Mountain. Water and particle effects are almostsecond-to-none as well. The work the team put into making this gamelook great is phenomenal. Unfortunately, the beauty is only skin-deepwith this one. Graphics mean little if the game isn’t good, and I woulddo away with top-of-the-line graphics any day if it meant a betterBanjo-Kazooie game. So what’s the bottom line when it comes to this game? Honestly, Iwas almost thoroughly disappointed. While the game looks and soundsgreat, it’s almost a spit in the face to this series’ devoted fan base.While it works as a game, it doesn’t work as a Banjo-Kazooie game. Allof the charm and quirkiness of the original titles, everything thatmade those games unique, is gone. Instead, we’re left with nothing morethan a relatively playable, yet clunky and superficial vehicle/racinggame to add to the ever-growing pile of games just like it. It’sforgettable in almost every sense of the word, and a near-injustice toa good series. While I understand that all franchises have duds, you’retalking about a series with four games,if you count the GameBoy ones. This game reeks of what developers havebeen doing to game series for a good deal of time now - changing thingsfor the worse. It’s just a damn shame that a series like Banjo-Kazooie,a series that’s had two solid games over a ten year period, fallsvictim to a stunt like this. It gets a 6/10 from me, on gameplay and interface alone, becausesentimentality isn’t a proper factor in rating anything. But I grew upwith this series. It was one of the things that near-defined mychildhood. It not only introduced me to the world of video games, butstoked my interest. They are games I still play to this day, and whilecontinue to play in the future. Like I said towards the beginning ofthis review, I’m not one to dwell on the destruction of my childhood,but this really bugs me. As the saying goes, don’t fix something if itain’t broken. And that’s certainly the case here.