Rareware / Rare / Playtonic

[Spark Of Spirit]

I figure we should have a thread for Rare, I mean, they must have been a part of everyone's childhood here, and up until the Gamecube/original Xbox, were one of the most high profile video game developers in the world.

I would say that something happened to Rare at a certain point. Maybe they got too full of themselves? Their games became too overambitious, too much stuff added on top and less focus on the core game. This started rearing it's head around DK64, but it got more pronounced as they went on, and started releasing less games until they all but died this gen.

However, throughout the NES, SNES, and N64, they were one of the best out there. They've made beat em ups (Battletoads), 2D platformers, (DKC series), 3D playgrounds (Blast Corps), adventure games (Wizards & Warriors) , racing (RC Pro AM), fighting games (Killer Instinct), FPS games (GoldenEye), 3D platformers (Banjo Kazooie), and simulation games (Viva Pinata!)... Don't just take my word for it, check out the incredible amount of games Rare has made since 1982! Almost 30 years old, and they've done almost everything.

Rare truly did it all, so it's a shame that currently they are doing nothing at all. (Wiisports clones aside)

EDIT: Link fixes

[Avaitor]

I'd like to blame Microsoft buying out Rare being their downfall, but like you said, that was happening for a little while.

From what I can remember of DK 64, it was stuck up it's ass in collecting quests, Star Fox Adventures is more proof that no Zelda clone will ever be half as entertaining as your average Zelda game, and PDZ and Kameo probably had a lot of their problems going on since their Gamecube days.

But yeah, their older games are classics. I still love the Banjos, DKCs, and everything else.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

Well, keep in mind a number of Rare employees left the company after they wrapped up Goldeneye (or was it Perfect Dark?) to form Free Radical, who produced the excellent Timesplitters series. I'm sure that probably had an effect on their output in the late N64 years that still haunts them to this day.

It's also worth pointing out their development cycles back in the late 90s mirror Square-Enix today. You had them announce a huge laundry list of titles, most of which spent a decade in development hell, and went through numerous reboots and fresh takes until they finally made it to the market. That problem didn't seem to exist prior to becoming a Nintendo, second party either, just look at their output before they had to begin developing SNES games.

[Foggle]

I feel like the guys in charge at Rare just went completely off their rocker at the ushering in of the 21st century.

Star Fox Adventures was plagued by "WTF?" design choices, the best example being the last twenty minutes of the game. You don't get to fight General Scales, his cronies were actually kind-hearted guys the whole time and were only assholes because he forced them to be, and it is revealed that Andross has been pulling the strings the whole time. The final boss battle is then conducted entirely in the Arwing, despite the fact that the game's other Arwing sections combined probably averaged about 15 minutes of the total gameplay time and were basically there to function as palette cleansers similar to the EPA levels in F.E.A.R. 2.

I remember at one point they said that if they ever made a sequel to Conker's Bad Fur Day, Conker would die in the opening cutscene (I can't remember what their reasoning behind this was, though).

Perfect Dark Zero's single-player campaign had some of the poorest and most confusing level design I have EVER seen in a FPS, while the multiplayer was essentially a cut-and-paste of Halo 2's with different character models.

Kameo might be the least memorable big-budget game on the Xbox 360.

And, of course, they ended up making Nuts & Bolts instead of Banjo-Threeie because "3D platformers aren't fun anymore."

[Spark Of Spirit]

Well, Square is pretty hefty with their development, and so was Rare, but they clearly had more manpower back then. the difference I'd think is that Rare used to actually release more than one game a year and in different genres. I mean, check out what Rare put out in less than two years:

Blast Corps - 1997
GoldenEye 007 - 1997
Diddy Kong Racing - 1997
Banjo-Kazooie - 1998

All high quality, different genres, and high sellers. No company did that back then outside of Nintendo, and nobody does that now. Up until about 1999, they pretty much were a literal game factory.

But after that point, I think (Conker and Perfect Dark aside) they seemed to lose the plot. I think they began to focus less on game design and more on gloss and extras that add little to the game. Perfect Dark Zero was embarrassing, BK3 was abandoned early in development because apparently it was too hard to make a good one, Grabbed By the Ghoulies, and all the pointless extras added in the DKC GBA ports...

I'm not sure who is in charge of Rare these days, but they really shouldn't be.

It's too bad their portable team seems to have been disassembled, it would have been nice to see what they could have done on the 3DS.

[Foggle]

Oh Christ, Grabbed By The Ghoulies... That one was just embarrassing...

[Spark Of Spirit]

One thing that put me out of the Rare camp was when David Wise left. The man is seriously one of the best VG composers out there (in my top 3) and to hear he had to leave because Rare wasn't doing anything was just sad.

[SSJ Jake]

Oh Christ, Grabbed By The Ghoulies... That one was just embarrassing...

Did you actually ever play Ghoulies? I owned the game and thought it was very fun, challenging and hilarious. The game got lambasted by reviewers for rather petty reasons, the only legit one being it's length. Certainly not Rare's "worst game ever" like it's sometimes labeled.

Anyway I was a Rare fan for a while. From the days of Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country and Killer Instinct to their pre-Kinect days I supported them. There were some games that I thought were lackluster, such as the Xbox Conker remake and Kameo (never played PDZ), but overall I enjoyed their outing from what I played. I know that they ran into big problems both last gen and especially this current gen with their games being revamped or simply canceled. The biggest examples of which were a Battletoads game for the GBA and Sabreman Stampede, the latter notably using the unreleased Donkey Kong Racing engine. Even so I'm surprised that none of their post N64 games were big in sales. You would think that at a $40 price tag and starring Banjo and Kazooie that Nuts & Bolts would have been Rare's come back, but no. The worst part about it is that it was the final nail in the coffin for old Rare and now their main focus seems to be only Kinect games, going as far as mentioning the idea for a Killer Instinct game for the Kinect. Probably the biggest slap in the face for fans eagerly awaiting a KI3.

That said, I agree that it's a shame to see a once opportunistic company go down the shitter and focus only on casual gaming.

[Foggle]

Oh Christ, Grabbed By The Ghoulies... That one was just embarrassing...

Did you actually ever play Ghoulies? I owned the game and thought it was very fun, challenging and hilarious. The game got lambasted by reviewers for rather petty reasons, the only legit one being it's length. Certainly not Rare's "worst game ever" like it's sometimes labeled.

Not at length. I rented it and played it for about 2 hours before I put it back in the case and never touched it again (except to take it back to Blockbuster).

But, you're right. It's definitely not their worst game. In fact, Nuts & Bolts aside (since I never really got to play it), it's probably the best original game they've made since being bought by Microsoft.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I find it funny how its in everyone's nature to only focus on the negative aspects of Rare in their posts. You all give them praise for the "good ol'" days for about 1 or 2 sentences, and then go onto complain about how they aren't what they used to be. I mean, that's fine and all, but personally I'm sick of all the bitching. How about having some more conversations focused on what games we actually liked from the company. Something like, oh, I don't know, the classic DKC games, maybe? Or the good half of their games on the N64?

I for one want to bring up that I find Jet Force Geimini to be an underrated Rare classic. My favorite games from them remain to be the first 2 DKC games, though.

[Foggle]

Honestly, I liked all of their N64 games. All of them.

Yes, that includes DK 64. I can still recite the DK rap from memory.

[Avaitor]

I liked Grabbed by the Ghoulies myself. It's not as great as their classics, but I thought the joystick combat controls were a nice change of pace, and I loved how everything was a weapon in the game.

I probably played that two or three times.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I've never played DK64 myself, so I wouldn't know whether its good or bad. But, knowing that its in human nature for people to bitch about things, I don't really take anyone's word for it on whether DK64 is good or bad. When the time comes that I get an opportunity to try it out for myself, I will, and I'll judge it for myself, as well.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

Donkey Kong 64 is my favorite N64 game. Yeah, I said it. It may be a collect-a-thon but the collector in me loved that shit and I enjoyed going down my list of stuff I had so far. The only parts that really bothered me was the low lighting in some levels (Creepy Castle is nearly unplayable if you're playing during the daytime) and the framerate dropping at weird moments.

Also, before I discovered the Street Fighter Alpha series, Killer Instinct was my favorite fighting game. I thought it did a great job mixing in elements from both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, and was far more beginner friendly than those two as well. The cast was especially well balanced considering Rare wasn't known for making fighting games before this. I still need to play the sequel though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Please stop with the DK64 love! It's killing me!  

I still rather like Perfect Dark a lot (the XBLA remake further solidified how much I like it) and by extension the Timesplitters games (even though the first feels rushed) I like the way the levels are simple in how small and straightforward they are, but feature a lot of side stuff that you could potentially miss out on if you blast through it. Also, I love how the game changes tremendously when you play it on higher difficulty levels by giving you more objectives.

The weapons in that game were awesome, the multiplayer is still one of the best because of the amazing maps and weapons in it, all the extras are actually relevant to the genre of game it is, and the shooting feels great.

Rare was a bit of a mixed bag for me overall, (didn't like a bunch of their NES games, Tooie, or DK64) but when they hit the mark... Man, they hit it good.