Banjo-Kazooie Nuts and Bolts/Transcript

Video Here ---\/ [Text in brackets = not spoken but shown on screen]

Jon: Ah, what perfection. What a beautiful day, wouldn't you say, Rockington? (Rockington is missing) Oh yeah, I lo- I lost Rockington. I lo- I lost a rock!

(The Starfox Adventures disc is seen spinning in outer space, but collides into a copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which falls into the earth's atmosphere.

Jon: Well I do believe I forgot about why I'm standing here. Guess I'll go back inside.

(Jon heads back, while the game falls from space and crash-lands near him. When Jon gets up, he picks up the game, wipes off the dirt and discovers it's Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts)

(Inside Jon's house)

Jon: Jacques! It's time to finally lay this nightmare to rest!

Jacques: So it has begun. Jon, I'm sorry, but this is for the good of everyone in the galaxy.

Jon: Jacques, what are talking about!? This is finally our chance to redo-

Jacques: Erasing memory. (Jon's memory is erased)

Jon: Oi Jacques, why are you green? Holy crap, a new Banjo-Kazooie game! Jacques, let's go play this!

Jacques: Oh shit!

Jon: Now Jacques, I know you weren't around when the Banjo-Kazooie games were popular, but I'm telling you, this is a huge day for me.

Jacques: I'm omnipresent.

Jon: Yeah right, okay, yes, what the- I'm gonna put the Banjo-Kazooie game in and we're gonna have a great time, okay? All right, here it goes. I'm takin' the next step towards the rest of my life!

(Jacques fires a laser beam at the game, which shatters it into pieces)

Jon: (Upset) Yeah, okay. Yeah, okay! Yeah, okay! Jacques, why did ya-!? Why did you do that!?

(Jon sobs hysterically)

Jon: Jacques, how could you do this to me, man!? I wanted to play that game for years, and finally I get it-

(Donkey Kong Country's Coral Capers music plays, as Jon comes across an SNES cartridge of Donkey Kong Country).

Jon: Hey, check it out. It's Donkey Kong Country. Man, this game really takes me back. As far as I can remember.

Jon: (Narrating) It was the early 90's. I just got your hands on this crazy new game, Donkey Kong Country, with sweet revolutionary 3D-rendered graphics. Who could forget the fond memories of snapping these games into our Super Nintendos, hearing that familiar click and hitting the on button. And there, in the dead silence of the night with your blanket enveloping you with a heavenly shroud of comfort, you heard that euphoric jingle for the very first time.

(Rareware logo music plays).

From that moment on, it was clear, it was obvious, it went without saying, you didn't play Rareware, you lived it. Enter, a golden era of video games unlike anything the world has ever seen, stunning new graphics, new ways to play, and a race to see who can make the best-looking and most game-changing software. It was truly the wild west, leading the hell was Rareware. In their early days, they were know for such games as Battletoads and Wizards & Warriors.

But they didn't hit critical acclaim until they become a second-party developer for Nintendo and rock the world with their Donkey Kong Country line of games. Gaming would never again be the same. It was no longer about your high score, it was about the adventure, and Rare knew this. They knew it better than the rest of us.

And that's when things got crazy. Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest! Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble! Diddy Kong Racing! Blast Core! Killer Instinct! Golden Eye: 007! Donkey Kong 64! Perfect Dark and Conker's Bad Fur Day ohmygod....... (overwhelmed) Oh, so many good games..... That's the thing that was so, seriously, no pun intended, rare about Rareware, it that they were like the Beatles of video games. They can take on seemingly any genre of gaming and set the bar while they were at it. Their line-up from the early 90's to the year 2000 was something I can only describe as, oh... sublime, it's "godlike", it's s'gooooooood!

But we're forgetting someone, aren't we? That's right, you didn't think I could possible overlook Banjo-Kazooie, did you? I mean look at... look at the title of the video. I... was probably gonna mention it. What's so great about Banjo-Kazooie, you ask, huh? Well I'm just not even sure I can put it into words, but I sure as hell can try. Ever just looked across a misty shore line, gazed over beyond the horizon and said to yourself, "what if?..". They're you go, you need further explanation, do you need clarity, do you clar-.

Every single part of the game was packed to the brim with originality and content. Sure it was a collect-a-thon if you will, but I still don't get why this is considered a derogatory thing to referring to games. Yes, it is a game where you collect things, but the game is built around it, so it's fine. Each collectible is ingeniously hidden within different parts of the level, and the best part about finding them is you have to survey the landscape and locate them by the seed of your own wit. There's no wait points. It's not like (imitates static) "Bravo Team, Baron, Bird, meet us at alpha point!". There's none of that. And of course, it must be said that Banjo-Kazooie had a freakin' awesome sequel called "Banjo-Tooie". It's pretty dang rare, (chuckles) well there it its again... when you're graced with a sequel of that quality in size.

But then, something terrible happened..... A mistep on the stairway to glory. In the year 2002, Rareware in its entirety was purchased by Microsoft Corporation. They started making games like Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Perfect Dark Zero, and Kameo: Elements of Power, and its fuzzy, but I could swear that I remember something else, something far more sinister.

Jon: Well if we can't play the new one, Jacques, then I guess we might as well just play the old one. It's the next best thing.

(Jon inserts a cartridge of Banjo-Kazooie into his Nintendo 64, but an electrical surge emerges from the system, restoring the destroyed copy of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Jon sees this and grabs the game before Jacques can destroy it again)

Jacques: Jon, stand back.

(Jacques fires laser beams at the game, but Jon reflects a beam with a mirror, which fires back at Jacques, blowing him up.)

Jon: And that's how you skin a cat, bird, I don't care, let's play the game already.

(Jon opens the game case and evil music playing, along with evil laughing and an image of a skull. Jon is horrified by what he sees. The game disc quickly flies out of the case and into his Xbox 360, which closes and boots up the game. On the television screen, an image of Gruntilda's head appears.)

Gruntilda: "Listened to your feathered friend you should have. Now you must play this game that's quite bad. From that seat you'll never jolt, until you're done with Nuts and Bolts!"

(Shackles appear on Jon's arm wrists. Jon tries to escape from his chair, but is restrained by Gruntilda's dark magic.)

Jon: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts? But Nuts and- (recalls an image of a bloated Banjo from the game) Oh, no... 'Oh, noooooooo! Noooooooooo!' (Jon's cry is heard from space, with a shot of the Earth). Jacques, I'm sorry, man! I didn't realize!

Jacques: (in the remains of his ashes) Please register me.

Jon: Guess there's only one thing to do now.

(Jon grabs his Xbox 360 controller)

Jon: (Reluctantly) Well here it is, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. It's sort of a bittersweet feeling, seeing the Rareware logo again after all these years. You hear that jingle right there? Well that's the stuff of heaven. And look, it's Spiral Mountain. Good to see you again, old friend. Mountains can't be friends. So we're met with a familiar menu screen, but it's a little different than before. For starters, it looks like Banjo's become a bit of a hoarder, huh. I guess those are all the Xboxes he had that red-ringed. Whoa! They're all about to topple over, but they never do! So, let's do the deed and start up the single player campaign.

(The loading music plays)

Jon: Huh, is that Battletoads in the background?

(A clip of Battletoads for the NES)

Eh, nice touch. So the game starts off with a bit of a restrospective. It tells the tale of Banjo, Kazooie, and Gruntilda. And it shows the games that came before.

Narrator: ...overcoming many perils and speech impediments to send Gruntilda, tumbling to her doom.

(Music from Conker's Bad Fur Day is heard playing on Banjo's radio.)

Jon: Oh, Conker's Bad Fur Day music. We get it Rareware, you used to be cool! Can we get on with it? [Stop! ''Stop it! Stop taunting me!] ''(An overweight Banjo and Kazooie are shown) Oh jeez, oh darn it. They got fat.

So this, uh, radio here tells Banjo and Kazooie that it's been 10 years since they were invented and they're all fat and washed up. Yep! (Caption: Irony) Can you feel that? Can you feel it? Ha, this kind of reminds me of it the beginning of Conker's Bad Fur Day, except instead of being funny, it's just Banjo telling us over and over that he should've ordered a small pizza. I'm fucking serious. Look at this shit. We get it. Yes. Yeah, okay, okay, small pizza. Why you always be tellin me this!? Ohhhhhhhm. I'm in da treesh. How'd I get in there? So they meet up with Grunty again, and it's like old times. Oh shit! Here we go!

(Banjo, Kazooie, and Gruntilda look like they're about to duke it out, but a pause caption appears)

Dafuq? I didn't pause. I didn't fucking paused the game in unfiltered comic-sans. Oh, I guess it was Tweedle Dum over here that did it (L.O.G. makes his debut).

So this guy calls him self the Lord of Games or "L.O.G.". Yeah, this game reminds me of some certain kinds of logs. (A weird background with spinning tree logs appears) Like these ones! (Back to the review) "Gruntilda: Your name is odd and you look at bit queer,"? You gotta understand, she's from a different era. Man, this sure does follow up on the spirit of Banjo-Kazooie games, subtly breaking the fourth wall, if you spell "subtly" like this ("Subtly" in giant letters behind flames, followed by an explosion). "Now then, in line with Banjo tradition, your challenge will consist of collecting as many pointless objects as possible"?

(record screeches)

Woah, Woah, WOAH! You just hold on a second! (The collect-a-thon commences) HAHAHAHAHAHA! Get it!? Because Banjo-Kazooie was totally this tedious! HOLY SHIT! "No. No. No. It's too painful to watch". Yeah, you got that part right. "Gamers today don't want all this. They just want to shoot things!"? "But as we're broadening the demographic, I'll have to come up with something original".

Jon: Something original, huh. Broadening the demographics? All right, I'll bite. What exactly did you guys have in mind?

(Clips of the main gameplay feature in the game: Cars)

Jon: Cars...? Cars?! CAAAAAAARS!!!!! ♪ AND IIIIIIIII—HOLY SHIT!—WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU DID THIS TO ME, GODDAMMIT! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?! ♪ I can sit here and be shovelin' shit all day, but no, no one can me that anyone, anywhere, thought this was an okay thing to do! Why, why would you take a fucking Banjo-Kazooie game, one that we've been waiting for, for years, and make it about fucking, LEGO, CAAAAARS!? No, must calm myself. Let me go ahead and try to explain this, how do you say, very well-justified rage. Let's go back to the roots of the problem. And maybe, if you don't already see it the way I do, you mind just change your mind.

Flashback, to the year 2000, you just beat Banjo-Tooie, and you hear Gruntilda say those beautiful words: "You just wait until Banjo-Threeie". Flash-forward, to late 2006, six whole years after the release of Banjo-Tooie. Fans of the series would be graced with something wonderful to hold onto, something that made the coming years look brighter than ever. The real next-gen Banjo-Kazooie game. Our secret wishes, were finally realized. We were once again priviledge to experience that lost genre of video gaming's adolescence. A new big-budget 3D platforming game. Banjo's coming back baby, and we we're happier than ever. Only, do you see anything wrong here? I don't know about you, but I don't see any CAAAAARS!! Or boats, or planes! All I see is the promise of something so beau- i-it's beautiful... it's so beautiful... oh.. oh god, I can't stand to look at it anymore.

So here we are in Showdown Town. Great, looks more like a bad custom Counter-Strike map. Oh good, I get to move around finally. Oh good, a tutorial on... car partsssss... Oh you know you're doing something wrong with your game when the first three hours isn't menus. Good, I just did... gonna make a- *tick-tick* make a car. I don't even want to kill myself right now. This is a sin. This is a true sin. An ultimate crime against the entire gaming community. I mean what if after Super Mario World, Nintendo came out with a trailer for Super Mario 64, and upon release day, you were greeted with Mario City Simulator, and then you turned on the game, and Shigeru Miyamoto's ghost comes out and all fuckin, "Nobody likes the old Mario games anymore, amiright BRB!? Making Legend of Zelda Modern Warfare!"!

So pretty much, there are levels gates all around, almost exactly like Super Mario Sunshine. Like I said, pretty much exactly. Uh..., what do I do? No seriously, what do I do? N-No seriously, what do I do! I'm fucking serious! Ladies and gentlemen, I have plucked a whale from the ocean and he sounds like a seal (Banjo holdspaces a whale in mid-air, while Jon nods his head).

So seriously, this is just one big empty level with nothing to do in it. I eventually found out that you gotta talk to people to unlock missions where you can actually do things. So why then can I walk around this giant wasteland? This feels more empty than Fallout 3, a game that's supposed to feel empty! I swear to god, It feels like I'm playing a game that wasn't finished. I know there's missions, but why? This a Banjo-Kazooie game. It's about the adventure.

And fine, if you're going to make it a car game, fine. But why make this overworld that has absolutely nothing it it? Lemme guess, is it per chance because the last games had overworlds that had in them!? Is that why!? If you trying to live on your predecessors' success, that's fine. But you can't change the game mechanics and still keep the old level design! That makes no sense.

But I'll tell you what does make a little bit of sense to me. Now I can't prove it, and I haven't read anything confirming it, but consider this the intuition of a seasoned veteran of early video game industry. Based on this old trailer, and these barren levels, it would seem to me that Banjo-Kazooie: Nults & Bolts was actually going to be Banjo-Threeie at some point. Like I said, I can't prove it, but it would make this all make sense. And you know what, if they had gone through with it, I'd bet it would been a decently good game. I mean, I don't know if it would've lived up to the originals, but the assets are all here. The graphics are pretty appealing, everything is stylized, and Banjo actually controls pretty satisfyingly on the ground. And I'm not kidding. The atmosphere at some places is actually pretty fantastic. The real part of the game is boring. I don't even care. Do you care? Do you fucking care? I don't care.

Maybe I can end the game early by killing Gruntilda while she's in the open! (Jon has Banjo's car ram into a stationary Gruntilda) Get her! Get her! Kick her eees! Hahahaha! Seriously, this ain't funny anymore. this is now called DramTron. Even though you may not believe this, I hate the fact that I have to hate this game. In an era where developers are piss-scared to make a tiptoe outside the proverbial box, it's actually nice to see something with a hint of originality, but this is not the way to do it. This should've been called "Tiptup: Nuts & Bolts". So why slap Banjo-Kazooie on this? I respect the idea, but come'on guys, you're better than this. Fuck you! I'm sorry, that was out of line. I can't do this anymore. I don't care if I have to sit here forever. I'm not playing anymore of this god damn game.

Jon: No.

(Jon quickly glances around and spots the same mirror he used before)

Jon: Jacques!

(Jon revives Jacques with a battle cry. Jacques tosses to the mirror to Jon, as the evil spirit within his Xbox 360 attacks him with a fireball. Jon reflects the fireball with his mirror back at the console, ejecting the Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts disc onto the floor. Jon quickly grabs the disc and forces it into the game case. Jon shuts the case tight, and tapes it to a rock with velcro. Jon takes to game and drives up to the shore, where he tosses it into the water as far as he can throw.)

Jon: I did it! I saved the world! (Jon gazes at the ocean, as birds (mirroring the poorly-rendered ones from Birdemic) fly in the background. The credits roll.)