There was a time when Rare made some pretty good games. Their N64 years were stellar. Goldeneye was by all accounts phenomenal, though I personally couldn’t get into it, same with Perfect Dark, for that matter. I would, however, end up whiling away far too many hours with Killer Instinct Gold, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Donkey Kong 64, and Conker’s Bad Fur Day (by the time I decided I wanted to have a go with Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini they were nowhere to be found).
Now that they exclusively develop and publish their console titles for their XBox systems, I’ll admit that I haven’t really kept up on their latest offerings. Mostly because I still don’t own an XBox or a 360. Their latest offering, Viva Piñata seems like it would be a decent game to try and recapture some of the successes of the Nintendo 64 heyday.
Eric-Jon Rössel Waugh over at Game Career Guide has a rather in-depth piece examining the game and focusing on the failures he sees. It’s a fairly interesting read.
“The most galling thing is that Viva Piñata is, at its heart, a good game: a charming, memorable concept, held down by a trunk full of the most inane problems. Result: playing the game, I feel like something innocent has had the life choked out of it. By accident, just because of poor judgment by people who should know better. As she said, it makes me sad.”
Hit the link for the full article.
Link! (Game Career Guide)