The new Rare?

[LostOverThere]

I'm actually really interested to see what Sora cook up. Their work on SSBB was amazing. We'll just have to see how Kid Icarus pans out.

[Fused King]

Level-5 make non-Professor Layton games?

 

They collaberate with loads of developers too.

 

Ni no Kuni

Fantasy Life

Inazuma Eleven

Time Travelers

Layton VS. Wright

 

and I just read that they'll be holding their 'Vision' conference this August revealing over more than 20 new games.

[killer kirby]

Level-5 make Professor Layton games?

 

Level 5 make video games?

[darkjak]

The reason I consider High Voltage to be a candidate is mainly their productivity.

Where Retro released MP3 in 2007, it then took them about three years to develop a second game.

High Voltage released the Conduit in 2009, Battle of Olympus shortly after and this year we'll probably both receive Conduit 2 and Grinder.

 

Rare were both known for productivity and quality. I think that High Voltage quite soon might be able to reach a high level of quality.

[Zechs Merquise]

The reason I consider High Voltage to be a candidate is mainly their productivity.

Where Retro released MP3 in 2007, it then took them about three years to develop a second game.

High Voltage released the Conduit in 2009, Battle of Olympus shortly after and this year we'll probably both receive Conduit 2 and Grinder.

 

Rare were both known for productivity and quality. I think that High Voltage quite soon might be able to reach a high level of quality.

 

Well, well, well! Let's have a look at the record of High Voltage Software as a developer on the Wii:

 

2010 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 15%

2010 Tournament of Legends - 47%

2010 Iron Man 2 - 48%

2009 The Conduit Sega Wii - 72%

2009 Evasive Space (WiiWare) - 58%

2009 High Voltage Hot Rod Show - (WiiWare) 69%

2008 Gyrostarr HVS (WiiWare) - 71%

2008 V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack (WiiWare) - 49%

2008 Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue - 74%

2007 Ben 10: Protector of Earth - 58%

2007 Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law - 62%

2006 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - 60%

 

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Voltage_Software

 

From this wonderful catalogue of games we can see that the likelihood of HVS ever reaching a reasonable level of quality is very low. Of the 12 games they have released on the Wii not one has got an average review score of over 80%, only 3 avergae over 70% (and only just, none of those three were in the high 70s) and a third of their titles scored less than 50%!

 

That is a pretty appalling record. Their two 'big' games were The Conduit and Tournament of Legends, which averaged 72% and 47% respectively.

 

Shockingly, Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue has a higher average review score than The Conduit - says it all really!

 

In this same time frame Retro did this:

 

2010 Donkey Kong Country Returns - 88%

2009 Metroid Prime: Trilogy - 92%

2007 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 90%

 

I'd rather have those three Retro titles than the whole HVS catalogue (four times as many titles) any day of the week!

Edited March 21, 2011 by Zechs Merquise

[Murr]

I Miss the days of the excitement for 'Capcom 5'

 

I Also miss the days when Nintendo had pretty decent first party support from other big players in the industry.

 

Tales of Symphonia and Baten Kaitos from Namco, as mentioned the Capcom 5 plus the ports that they did of the RE franchise (Resident Evil 2 deserved a graphically updated port so bad!) Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes / Eternal Darkness from Konami & Silicon Knights (who I was sure were going to be Nintendo's next Rare, although after Too Human, kinda glad we got the best out of them with Eternal Darkness alone <3)

 

Heck we even got Final Fantasy back on a Nintendo console, albeit not quite the Final Fantasy series we actually wanted.

 

 

 

I also loved it when Nintendo were pally with other companies that they leant some of there large franchises out to other companies to work on like F Zero and Starfox.

 

basically to sum it up

 

this use to excite me! (even though it was really only for the arcade games they made)

[darksnowman]

Well, well, well! Let's have a look at the record of High Voltage Software as a developer on the Wii:

 

2010 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 15%

2010 Tournament of Legends - 47%

2010 Iron Man 2 - 48%

2009 The Conduit Sega Wii - 72%

2009 Evasive Space (WiiWare) - 58%

2009 High Voltage Hot Rod Show - (WiiWare) 69%

2008 Gyrostarr HVS (WiiWare) - 71%

2008 V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack (WiiWare) - 49%

2008 Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue - 74%

2007 Ben 10: Protector of Earth - 58%

2007 Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law - 62%

2006 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - 60%

 

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Voltage_Software

 

Man, they've churned out some tosh haven't they. Wasn't Harvey Birdman meant to be ok? Though I thought it was a Capcom game for some reason. Rareware would be rolling in their graves at such a comparison.

 

In this same time frame Retro did this:

 

2010 Donkey Kong Country Returns - 88%

2009 Metroid Prime: Trilogy - 92%

2007 Metroid Prime 3: Corruption - 90%

 

I'd rather have those three Retro titles than the whole HVS catalogue (four times as many titles) any day of the week!

 

They've also churned out some tosh. :wink: Rareware would be rolling in their graves if they knew how shat upon the DKC series has been. (Or cared.)

 

 

 

 

As for the NEW! Rare? There is none. I probably don't miss them that much because its not like my library of games has suffered. In fact, pre-Gamecube I pretty much exclusively bought Nintendo and Rare made games. After StarFox Adventures, I was forced to broaden my horizons and accept other third parties more. I don't think any single dev has filled the void, but I know my gaming has been filled with some magical titles since Rare's departures.

 

The current Rare tries and fails, but bless their little hearts for atleast trying. To think that back in the day, I used to imagine working for them and making DKC games. Sadly Nintendo were right to sell Rare, we miss them, but it just means that the old days are all the better remembered - Nintendo and Rare pwning all... then Microsoft swooping in like Abramovic and buying the flavour of the month, only for them to fail to produce the goods for their new team.

[killer kirby]

They've also churned out some tosh. :wink: Rareware would be rolling in their graves if they knew how shat upon the DKC series has been. (Or cared.)

 

Funny, you must be the only one in denial, since as you can see from the scores they never bring out tosh but bring out games touched by God himself, so powerful he touched DKR it's made it impossible and laughable for people like me to compare it to the other 3 since the other 3 are so outdated and could not even touch the brilliance and creativity that went into DKCR. : peace: You just jelly :P

[nekunando]

They've [Retro Studios] also churned out some tosh.

 

Wrong

 

..it's made it impossible and laughable for people like me to compare it [DKCR] to the other 3 since the other 3 are so outdated and could not even touch the brilliance and creativity that went into DKCR. : peace:

 

Wrong

[LostOverThere]

Well, well, well! Let's have a look at the record of High Voltage Software as a developer on the Wii:

 

2010 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - 15%

2010 Tournament of Legends - 47%

2010 Iron Man 2 - 48%

2009 The Conduit Sega Wii - 72%

2009 Evasive Space (WiiWare) - 58%

2009 High Voltage Hot Rod Show - (WiiWare) 69%

2008 Gyrostarr HVS (WiiWare) - 71%

2008 V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack (WiiWare) - 49%

2008 Go, Diego, Go!: Safari Rescue - 74%

2007 Ben 10: Protector of Earth - 58%

2007 Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law - 62%

2006 The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy - 60%

 

SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Voltage_Software

 

From this wonderful catalogue of games we can see that the likelihood of HVS ever reaching a reasonable level of quality is very low. Of the 12 games they have released on the Wii not one has got an average review score of over 80%, only 3 avergae over 70% (and only just, none of those three were in the high 70s) and a third of their titles scored less than 50%!

 

That is a pretty appalling record.

Please understand the difference between original and licensed

titles. HVS make license titles so they can afford to make original titles. Because of their status as a small third party developer, they'll never have the luxury any Nintendo developer will have. Comparing Retro Studios to High Voltage Software solely on their Metacritic score is both unfair and wrong.

 

With that being said, I agree that, of course, Retro Studios are still a considerably better studio.

[Dyson]

 

The game was basically a cart-based game, with the characters of Banjo Kazooie tacked onto it. Rare themselves said it was 70+% customisation/trolly-based and the rest of the % being platforming. I saw no platforming, well hardly any and it was all cart-based and customising.

 

Are you sure you were playing the right game? Nuts and Bolts is a fantastic game. As long as you don't take it to be a sequel to Banjo-Tooie and look at it for what it is (a vehicle sandbox with challenges that you have to build appropriate vehicles for) then you're in for a treat.

 

Banjo-Kazooie is one of my all time favourite games, but the fact that NaB wasn't a direct sequel to Tooie hasn't phased me one bit. The characters, the humor, the gameplay and the world is all trademark Rare. It's so painfully obvious when you're playing the game that this is a labour of love for the developers.

 

However, they did use Comic Sans as their in game font, so -10 respect.

 

The missions were linier, they all felt the same and it got boring.

 

I'm not even gonna touch that one.. I think you've got your words mixed up.

 

Probably why Microsoft put them on the Kinect developers list, they can't do much right these days.

 

Yeah, Rare were so bad they let them develop a hugely important first party title that'd essentially sell the device. Not like you need a strong dev team to do that - oh, wait..

[Zechs Merquise]

Please understand the difference between original and licensed

titles. HVS make license titles so they can afford to make original titles. Because of their status as a small third party developer, they'll never have the luxury any Nintendo developer will have. Comparing Retro Studios to High Voltage Software solely on their Metacritic score is both unfair and wrong.

 

With that being said, I agree that, of course, Retro Studios are still a considerably better studio.

 

They have two original titles on there, one of them is Tournament of Legends, it scored 47%!

[mr_bogus]

Shin'en are looking up on the Wiiware side (see Jett Rocket, upcoming FAST Racing League, and before Wiiware, the amazing Nanostray 2 on DS).

 

If Nintendo took them on as 1st/2nd party, I believe they could fill the gap left by Rare 10 years ago (let's all feel old, shall we).

 

Seen this? The next Perfect Dark game that was in development at Rare (apparently by the ex-Conker team), before they threw it all in the bin & made all the teams work on Kinect Sports.

http://www.unseen64.net/2011/03/21/perfect-dark-core-xbox-360-cancelled-prototype/

[darkjak]

Yeah, Rare were so bad they let them develop a hugely important first party title that'd essentially sell the device. Not like you need a strong dev team to do that - oh, wait..

 

Why do you consider Kinect Sports to be hugely important? It's a low budget clone of another popular game. And they couldn't even get that right!

[Zechs Merquise]

Shin'en are looking up on the Wiiware side (see Jett Rocket, upcoming FAST Racing League, and before Wiiware, the amazing Nanostray 2 on DS).

 

If Nintendo took them on as 1st/2nd party, I believe they could fill the gap left by Rare 10 years ago (let's all feel old, shall we).

 

Seen this? The next Perfect Dark game that was in development at Rare (apparently by the ex-Conker team), before they threw it all in the bin & made all the teams work on Kinect Sports.

http://www.unseen64.net/2011/03/21/perfect-dark-core-xbox-360-cancelled-prototype/

 

That video was very interesting but paints a frightening picture of just how Rare lost all internal focus and it lead to many projects that were never seen through to anything near conclusion and even lead to Perfect Dark disappearing, possibly forever. Very sad.

 

Why do you consider Kinect Sports to be hugely important? It's a low budget clone of another popular game. And they couldn't even get that right!

 

haha

 

Microsoft purchased Rare to make AAA titles like they did for the N64, not to make minigame compilations! You don't need to spend that kind of money to acquire a company to make casual games like that!

[Fused King]

Is it possible that NINTENDO buy back Rare?

Would they then have to strike a deal with Microsoft?

 

Heh, would make one hell of a stunt if Rare was secretly making launch titles for NINTENDO's new home console:laughing:

[or else you will DIE]

Whether or not Nintendo buy Rare back, I think it's pretty safe to say that Rare isn't Rare anymore. Too many people from the "glory days" have left, so I've heard. It wouldn't be the same. :[

 

Also, question: Rare aren't allowed to make console games for Nintendo, but can still make handheld games right? If this is the case, would they be allowed to port/remake N64 games for the 3DS?

Edited March 30, 2011 by or else you will DIE

[LostOverThere]

Is it possible that NINTENDO buy back Rare?

Would they then have to strike a deal with Microsoft?

Why would they want to? Apart from the properties, if I were Nintendo, I wouldn't even want to touch Rareware any more. There's infinitely better developers to buy out than Rare.

[Jimbob]

Are you sure you were playing the right game? Nuts and Bolts is a fantastic game. As long as you don't take it to be a sequel to Banjo-Tooie and look at it for what it is (a vehicle sandbox with challenges that you have to build appropriate vehicles for) then you're in for a treat.

 

Banjo-Kazooie is one of my all time favourite games, but the fact that NaB wasn't a direct sequel to Tooie hasn't phased me one bit. The characters, the humor, the gameplay and the world is all trademark Rare. It's so painfully obvious when you're playing the game that this is a labour of love for the developers.

 

However, they did use Comic Sans as their in game font, so -10 respect.

 

Yes, i was playing the same game as you were. I felt that Nuts and Bolts was nowhere near the quality that Rare were at with the Banjo series. The humour was there, but honestly you cannot judge a game just on that can we. Gameplay no, world no. Rare released that teaser trailer before showing N+B months after, and it showed that Rare could have made it better. But, as i mentioned before, N+B felt like a game which had the Banjo characters and stuff bolted on, like Star Fox Adventures.

 

It seemed a similar situation between Ninty and Microsoft, Ninty thought Dinosaur Planet wasn't going to sell well so told Rare to bolt Star Fox to it. Microsoft thought what-ever the original idea for Nuts and Bolts was wasn't going to work, so got the Banjo characters tied to it. Instead of letting Rare make the game we all wanted.

 

Even though Rare said they had the original Banjo team making Nuts and Bolts, i don't think they did somehow.

 

Yeah, Rare were so bad they let them develop a hugely important first party title that'd essentially sell the device. Not like you need a strong dev team to do that - oh, wait..

 

Why do you consider Kinect Sports to be hugely important? It's a low budget clone of another popular game. And they couldn't even get that right!

 

Microsoft purchased Rare to make AAA titles like they did for the N64, not to make minigame compilations! You don't need to spend that kind of money to acquire a company to make casual games like that!

 

I agree with darkjak and Zechs, sorry Dyson. Rare were definetly showing huge signs of failure. Why would they give promotional codes for Kazooie with pre-orders for Nuts and Bolts?. Wern't they 100% sure that N+B was going to sell well enough.

 

If Rare managed to make some decent games (minus Viva Pinata and Kameo) on the Xbox, i would imagine that Microsoft would have put a different developer onto make Kinect Sports.

 

Definetly shows to me that Microsoft wasted that money spent on Rare. They bought Rare to make AAA titles, but now they are making party/minigame compilations. Doesn't compute the price spent.

 

Is it possible that NINTENDO buy back Rare?

Would they then have to strike a deal with Microsoft?

 

If Nintendo bought Rare back from Microsoft, and they made great games as they did on the N64 once again, i'm sure there would be a lawsuit between Microsoft, Rare and Nintendo. Probably with M/S winning by convincing the court that Ninty sold Rare to M/S with instructions to make crappy games until Ninty bought them back at a discount price.

 

Heh, would make one hell of a stunt if Rare was secretly making launch titles for NINTENDO's new home console:laughing:

 

I'd laugh if that occured

[Cube]

Why would they want to? Apart from the properties, if I were Nintendo, I wouldn't even want to touch Rareware any more. There's infinitely better developers to buy out than Rare.

 

Either to try and bring them up to their old standard or to get them to make the next Wii Sports.

[mr_bogus]

That video was very interesting but paints a frightening picture of just how Rare lost all internal focus and it lead to many projects that were never seen through to anything near conclusion and even lead to Perfect Dark disappearing, possibly forever. Very sad.

 

Rare always had prototype projects, secret projects, etc on the go, sometimes for multiple years before they'd decide to can them. I know someone who left Rare because he'd been there 6 years and still hadn't worked on a published game!

 

Definetly shows to me that Microsoft wasted that money spent on Rare. They bought Rare to make AAA titles, but now they are making party/minigame compilations. Doesn't compute the price spent.

 

If Nintendo bought Rare back from Microsoft, and they made great games as they did on the N64 once again, i'm sure there would be a lawsuit between Microsoft, Rare and Nintendo. Probably with M/S winning by convincing the court that Ninty sold Rare to M/S with instructions to make crappy games until Ninty bought them back at a discount price.

 

That reminds me of a conspiracy theory that Nintendo got the Yakuza to threaten Rare to sabotage the games they were making for Microsoft, after the buy out

 

Also, question: Rare aren't allowed to make console games for Nintendo, but can still make handheld games right? If this is the case, would they be allowed to port/remake N64 games for the 3DS?

 

Yep this wasn't seen as direct competition, and for 3 years after the buyout, the only profit Microsoft made off Rare was from their Nintendo games (Starfox Adventures, and the Donkey Kong Country GBA conversions)!

 

But apparently after Viva Pinata DS, the handheld team got disbanded & moved onto making avatars, so I assume they don't have a "handheld team" any more...

 

I think if anything, they'd more likely do more ports/remakes on XBLA like they did with Banjo & Perfect Dark.

[Cube]

I think if anything, they'd more likely do more ports/remakes on XBLA like they did with Banjo & Perfect Dark.

 

Rare didn't do those.

[mr_bogus]

Rare didn't do those.

 

My mistake. correction: s/do/release/

[The Peeps]

Why do you consider Kinect Sports to be hugely important? It's a low budget clone of another popular game. And they couldn't even get that right!

 

Sorry but have you played the game? I was quick to fob it off as a wii sports clone but it's so much more. It is still essentially a compilation of different sports games but I think bowling is the only sport they've copied. It's of a much higher quality than Wii Sports and a lot more fun.

[The Mad Monkey]

Also, question: Rare aren't allowed to make console games for Nintendo, but can still make handheld games right? If this is the case, would they be allowed to port/remake N64 games for the 3DS?

 

I'd kill for Blast Corps in 3D, actually I'd kill for any new Blast Corps game.