Rare have been around for a while now. Under labels Ultimate: Play the Game, Rareware and now simply Rare they have built up quite an impressive collection of games including favourites such as Donkey Kong Country, Battletoads and Goldeneye 007. Unfortunately, recent titles haven't done so well. How many people do you know have played Grabbed by the Ghoulies on the Xbox? And we wont even mention the highly anticipated flop that was Perfect Dark Zero (though I wont deny enjoying it)... However Rare have had a huge money injection from Microsoft allowing them to attempt to reclaim their former glory. Viva Pináta seems to be doing ok, and recently we've seen the release of Banjo Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. Which brings me back to this N64 classic: Banjo Kazooie on Xbox Live Arcade.

Bear and Bird are back! Ahem...that is they're back in their original adventure. With updated visuals the the 360, updated controls and the Nintendo logo removed, Banjo Kazooie is here and it's fantastic!

The story: In her lair, their lives a witch. Her evil  rhyming ways make her a bit...of a bad person. She wants to look young, beautifl and scarily sexy...in an evil way, so, after building a machine that can swap good and ugly looks, she looks for her youthful target.
   Like all good platform games, the aim of the game is to save a girl from the big bad. In this case, the girl is our hero's sister Tooty, whom Bottles, the short sighted mole, witnesses being captured by Grunty. When Banjo & Kazooie venture outside to see what's going on, it's too late! Tooty has been kidnapped!
And that's where the game begins.

Banjo Kazooie is not your average platform adventure though. Following very closely to the Super Mario 64 formula you control a fully 3D Banjo (that's a bear called Banjo to you and me) who's sidekick Kazooie sits in his backpack. He can run, jump, use items and talk to certain in-game characters. With Kazooie's help he can climb slopes, fly and even become invincible for short periods of time.

He needs these abilities as Grunty has set up a series of challenges to keep Banjo at bay. These include collecting musical notes to open doors (bit like the stars in Super Mario 64), and collecting puzzle pieces to open new levels. The musical notes are hanging around like Sonic's rings and Mario's coins. However to collect the puzzle pieces you need to complete tasks within each of the stages. These involve locating a burping hippo's treasure to collecting acorns for a squirrel who wants to hibernate. Some challenges require you to be a different shape, so a Shaman named Mumbo will turn you into various things thoughout the game (bouncing pumpkin that gets flushed down a toilet?) to assist you.

As with most games, there is a learning curve which starts off very easy when you're in the lush green worlds...when you start getting to the snow, egyptian and even oily ship stages things get a lot more tricky. If you're an N64 veteran though the game will actually seem a lot easier. Not just because you'll have played the game before but because Rare have made the game easier! No longer do you have to recollect each musical note from the start if you exit a stage, the game remembers what you've collected! No more controllers through windows when you're about the collect the 100th note and you get a Game Over. Not only that, another collectable in the game, Jinjos, are remembered too!

Viually this game does look dated...but no more dated than any other Xbox Live Arcade game. It is better looking than the N64 version with sharper visuals and a few graphical tweeks, however it is instantly recognisable as the N64 classic it once was. The game's camera isn't too great...often facing an awkward direction which means you may be trying one or two challenges repeatedly to complete them, however it doesn't have a major impact. The game's soundtrack complements the game with it's suitable dynamic music tracks that change depending on your surroundings, and the crazy speech from the characters add to the comedy value of this game.

If you like 3D platformers, and haven't yet played Banjo Kazooie, where have you been? Download this game and enjoy it's Kazoogly goodness! If you're enjoying Nuts & Bolts at the moment, this game will complement your Banjo Kazooie goodness with extras that were never used in the N64 original...
It's one of my favourite game of all time and would recommend it to any Xbox 360 owner.