The next game that I wanted to look at was Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts which is a 3rd in the series from the first game Banjo-Kazooie brought out in 1998, and the sequel Banjo-Tooie in 2000. This game, released in 2008, is set eight years after the events of the second game in which Gruntilda's body was destroyed. Eight years later, when the pair are eating pizza and playing video games when Gruntilda's head returns to Spiral Mountain. They are about to fight when they are stopped by the Lord of Games. He settles the conflict through a series of tasks by which the Lord of Games sets and he gives Gruntilda a body and restores the pairs fitness as the years haven't been kind to them.
The character of Banjo and Kazooie are brilliant, just like they were in the previous games, but this time they look a lot nicer with better graphics, but they do look slightly more blocky than before. The initial idea behind the game was to originally just have a bear who wore a backpack and when he needed to glide wings came out of it and feet when he needed to run faster. This seemed like a strange concept, and a little bit Inspector Gadget-y, so it was decided that he would have a bird, his friend Kazooie, in there instead, which worked really well. This then created humour between the two and they could bounce things off each other and work together which was a nice prospect. The thing that I like about the character is not only that he has human anatomy so that he walks on two legs and performs human activities but the fact that they are designed so well. Banjo has a unique look to him that works really well and the fact that he wears yellow trousers gives him a little bit of character as well as personality.
Then there are the environments, which are all gorgeous. They have a really nice uniqueness about them that wasn't featured in the previous game, and is the fact that a lot of the environments look like a patch-work quilt. They are formed out of lots of different things, mostly pieces of metal and are so vibrant and colourful and look incredible. Then there are the objects that feature in the levels which all look fantastic as well, especially the trees and clouds which are balls of metal attached together. They look great even though very cartoony, but this works with the rest of the designs. All of the different environments that the pair visit are beautifully designed and feature vast worlds to explore either on foot or by your vehicle. Due to the nature of the game being about nuts and bolts, steam punk is a heavy feature and there are so many areas that have huge cogs and wheels working away in the background which offer beautiful views to look at and a break from exploring.
The cuts scenes that the game has to offer are not all that great though. The one nice thing about them though is that they do appear to have been created using the in-game engine, making them the same quality as the rest of the game, ensuring that the gameplay graphics do not look worse than the cut scenes. But this is probably the only good thing, the cut scenes give information on the story and give little character development but not much more. The opening cut scene gives a nice insight into the first level as it does a nice pan around but it just tells the story of what has happened in the previous games, so it isn't worth looking into them anymore.
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