The new Rare?

[Rummy]

I think the Stamper brothers were unknowingly very astute in naming their company. Rare was at its peak a one of a kind that I doubt we'll ever see again, I don't know what magic they had running through their teams, but I just don't imagine getting the consistent quality that Rare had from any other company.

 

So the new Rare? There isn't one.

[nekunando]

I think most of us should be thankful we got to experience Rare at the peak of their powers back in the SNES and N64 days. It was certainly kinda sad when Nintendo sold them to Microsoft but when you look at what has become of them, it was a fantastic piece of business..

[Rummy]

It was a shame Ninty sold them, but from what I understand it was out of their hands wasn't it? The Stamper brothers sold their 51% holding to MS I thought, then Ninty followed with their 49%? It was probably Rare's final gem, because I can't help but imagine MS payed well over the odds for the original stake, and probably thus for the following one too, lining Ninty's pocket to become what they are now.

 

Money grabbing cants!

[Fierce_LiNk]

I remember being heart-broken when RARE left for Microsoft. But, honestly, there's not a single game they've created since joining that I've wanted. So disappointed with their releases.

[Arnieboy]

Viva Pinata is the only post Nintendo Rare game that I've enjoyed and I'm guessing it'll be the last.

Some of the elite Rare members now work for Crytek UK aka Free Radical before it went bust and with rumours of Timesplitters 4 being announced, as long as they don't do another Haze it's all good.

 

I doubt we'll ever see platformers quite like Rare's again though, Retro Studios' efforts are as close as we're going to get.

[mr_bogus]

...because I can't help but imagine MS payed well over the odds for the original stake, and probably thus for the following one too, lining Ninty's pocket to become what they are now.

 

Interesting point... do you think Nintendo might've also be different today if that hadn't happened?

[Rummy]

Apparently MS paid a total of $375million to own the company, don't know if that's equal prices for both parties but assuming it was then Ninty woulda made about $185m? Maybe it was a lot of money used to put into developing the Wii? Personally I've always believed the Wii was going to be a make or break for Nintendo, just seems they got lucky and made it, but I'm not such a big fan of them now for some reason.

[tapedeck]

After seeing Nintendo's comments about Monster Games, Next Level and Retro Studios I'm actually in the camp that now thinks that these three developers are up there with Nintendo's best developers - including Rare.

 

Sure, Rare seemed able to turn their hand from racers to platformers to shooters and any other genre in breathtaking fashion but they had years of partnership experience working on varied genres. They were also masters of imitation. DKC/Killer Instinct/Banjo/Diddy Kong Racing/Battletoads all take inspiration from mainstream games at the time.

 

But in Retro, you see similarities which indicate that since Metroid Prime Corruption they have been trusted to go on to do Donkey Kong Country Returns - perhaps Nintendo will now let them create the racer they had planned years ago? Working with the DK brand indicates huge amounts of trust in a developer.

Next level games did stunning work with Strikers and Punch Out!! And Monster Games' Excite series games were fantastic (ExcuteTruck is still a gem) and Pilotwings is sublime on the 3DS and actually is far deeper than reviews suggest. All three studios also house stunning audio teams (like Rare), listen to Strikers, the Prime series and Punch Out/Pilotwings for proof.

 

So, the new Rareware companies are like the old Rare. A shadow of Nintendo which is, as I suggest, slightly darker in tone yet able to mimic their development philosophies.

 

Prime Excite-ing, next-level times indeed.

Edited April 9, 2011 by tapedeck

[The Peeps]

They are all great companies/games but in Rare's prime they were knocking out 4/5 titles a year and they were mostly all great games.

 

Blast Corps, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing in '97

 

Banjo-Kazooie in '98

Jet Force Gemini, Donkey Kong 64 in '99

 

Perfect Dark, Mickey's Speedway USA (I didn't even realise this was Rare until now good game), Banjo-Tooie in 2000

[tapedeck]

They are all great companies/games but in Rare's prime they were knocking out 4/5 titles a year and they were mostly all great games.

 

As good as Rare were and as much content as they put out on the SNES (including DKC trilogy/killer instinct/ken Griffey Jnr Baseball) they had invested heavily in SGI workstations and had N64 dev kits early - which heavily assisted them with N64 development. I'm sure the pressure was on to recuperate monies spent from workstations bought and so their latter SNES and then N64 output actually had to be excessive. Thankfully the games were great pieces of software steered by professionalism, experience and their skill in imitating other games.

 

Goldeneye actually put a lot of developers off working in the industry (link) and when you look at the events that led to Dinosaur Planet becoming Starfox Adventures, it appeared that Rare were becoming more and more stretched as the experienced staffers (and the Stampers eventually) left. Looking at their late 64 output (specifically DK64, Banjo Tooie, JFG, Speedway and CBFD) you could also argue that Rare were stretching themselves from a gameplay perspective, losing touch with just making a game enjoyable and not a collectathon. Astounding as it was, Perfect Dark too was both a piece of software genius and simultaneously technically a mess, pushing the N64 beyond it's limits. I just question if that's a good thing to do.

 

The Microsoft merger probably created more pressure than the company could take. Working with an entire new system (having already trained staffers to get up-to-speed on GameCube development) and adding pressure by promising Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero to the system was almost suicidal.

Rare were different but when the pressure was off and the company got back to creative imitation, they began to get back in touch with their strengths.

Viva Piñata, Banjo and their Avatar & Kinect software shows where that Rare are still a talented development team.

 

They had an astounding run on the SNES/N64 yet financial undercurrents were the reason behind that incredible run. We may never see such output again yet what a time it was. Rare times indeed.

Edited April 9, 2011 by tapedeck

[LostOverThere]

They are all great companies/games but in Rare's prime they were knocking out 4/5 titles a year and they were mostly all great games.

 

Blast Corps, Goldeneye, Diddy Kong Racing in '97

 

Banjo-Kazooie in '98

Jet Force Gemini, Donkey Kong 64 in '99

 

Perfect Dark, Mickey's Speedway USA (I didn't even realise this was Rare until now good game), Banjo-Tooie in 2000

This means nothing though. Rare were a massive developer. Even today in their scaled down form, Rare still employs over 200 people. In contrast, Retro Studios has a total of 60 staff members.

[The Peeps]

Well in a straight comparison between how many games each company averagely brings/brought out (which is what I was doing)... it does mean something :p

 

But yes, Rare was/is a much larger company than Retro, Monster, Next Level etc.

 

Not sure what your counter-argument is though (if you're making one)... Rare is bigger therefore...? Just more evidence that although all of these companies are great and have made brilliant games, they just haven't managed to achieve what Rare did... yet

 

I suppose if Retro Studios did have about 200 staff members they would be able to do it. Combine Monster Games and Retro Studios and maybe we'd get a kick-arse, quality, humorous title akin to a Rare classic.

[mr_bogus]

Well in a straight comparison between how many games each company averagely brings/brought out (which is what I was doing)... it does mean something :p

 

But yes, Rare was/is a much larger company than Retro, Monster, Next Level etc.

 

Not sure what your counter-argument is though (if you're making one)... Rare is bigger therefore...? Just more evidence that although all of these companies are great and have made brilliant games, they just haven't managed to achieve what Rare did... yet

 

I suppose if Retro Studios did have about 200 staff members they would be able to do it. Combine Monster Games and Retro Studios and maybe we'd get a kick-arse, quality, humorous title akin to a Rare classic.

 

When Rare were churning out all those N64 classics, for the most part, they were still < 100 people. It was only around 1999/2000 AFAIK that they doubled in size (and moved out of the converted farm, into a bigger building).

 

It's also a team size thing - nowadays a big game takes a team of 100-200, but those games were probably developed by teams of 20ish (which was likely considered big at the time).

[killer kirby]

I think people need to remember that as technology grows so does the time to create really well done games. So many games used to come out yearly, it's very rare now unless you are really milking the fuck out of it *Points to Activision and EA*

 

Look at Rare now, are they bringing out 4-5 games a year?

[Murr]

After seeing Nintendo's comments about Monster Games, Next Level and Retro Studios I'm actually in the camp that now thinks that these three developers are up there with Nintendo's best developers - including Rare.

 

Sure, Rare seemed able to turn their hand from racers to platformers to shooters and any other genre in breathtaking fashion but they had years of partnership experience working on varied genres. They were also masters of imitation. DKC/Killer Instinct/Banjo/Diddy Kong Racing/Battletoads all take inspiration from mainstream games at the time.

 

But in Retro, you see similarities which indicate that since Metroid Prime Corruption they have been trusted to go on to do Donkey Kong Country Returns - perhaps Nintendo will now let them create the racer they had planned years ago? Working with the DK brand indicates huge amounts of trust in a developer.

 

 

What racer was that? just looking at Retro's cancelled titles and i've got...

 

Cancelled projects

The four initial GameCube projects Retro had before the development of Metroid Prime were cancelled:

• 
   
  
• An action-adventure game with the working title "Action-Adventure". It was mostly concept artwork and a mock up first-person engine before cancellation, but allegedly inspired Shigeru Miyamoto to hand Retro the Metroid license. The development team moved onto production of Metroid Prime.[3]
  
• An American football game, NFL Retro Football. The game designers initially wanted to make a Mario Football game, but since Nintendo settled on a realistic simulator with the NFL license due to Retro's purpose of creating mature games.[3] The game was cancelled in February 2001. A possible cause was Electronic Arts and Sega agreeing to port the Madden NFL and NFL 2K series to the GameCube.[8]
  
• A vehicular combat game, with the working titles Car Combat and Thunder Rally. It was initially pitched to Nintendo of as a mix of "QuakeWorld, Twisted Metal 2, and Mario Kart 64 with shades of Mad Max and Street Fighter II." Despite being the project with most progress at Retro, it was cancelled along with NFL Retro Football in February 2001. Two members of the development team, programmer David "Zoid" Kirch and modeller Rick Kohler, joined the Metroid Prime project.[3]
  
• A role-playing video game, Raven Blade. The game was showcased on E3 2001, but production was plagued with technical setbacks,[88] and the game eventually got cancelled on July 2001 so Retro could focus on Metroid Prime. 9 members of its development team joined Prime.
  

[9]

 

Courtesy of Wikipedia :p I assume the race game you meant is the vehicular combat game?

 

But judging by how well there work has been met by reviewers and gamers, and how sales are for the titles they've released, then agreed surely they'll be trusted to develop games for Nintendo featuring other big franchises... what are we missing. Starfox, last time round that was handed off to Rare and Namco, so perhaps Nintendo will once again dish that franchise out and Retro could have a stab.

 

or F Zero, Sega worked on FX/GX, didn't they? again perhaps Nintendo will let Retro put some effort on to that, and if Retro were working on a race game / vehicular combat game.... F Zero could tick a few boxes.

 

 

 

 

last point though.... would there be much point these arriving on Wii (if it were happening) ... do you think right now Nintendo may have given Retro another Nintendo franchise to work on, but keep it as one of many Nintendo's 6th Console launch games.