Rareware / Rare / Playtonic

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

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

dealwithit.tiff

Oh, another aspect people seemed to overlook in the game was the boss multiplayer. Yeah, it stinks that you have to unlock it before being able to use it, but once you do, you've gained another 50 hours of the game at least. I remember the first time I had enough people with BYOC to play a 4 player match, and we were up all night playing the game. I think my mom got pissed because we were all still fairly young at that point, and my little brother was too young to be up that late, and we had completely neglected to eat the Burger King meals we had bought right before getting home. But we didn't care because we were having a total blast hitting each other with fruit ammo and orange grenades and sometimes meeting our ends by running and stomping each other.

Also, Jetpac and Donkey Kong were awesome bonus games. I remember Jetpac was fairly simple, but some of those later levels had those ridiculous UFOs that homed in on you, and Donkey Kong was so primitive you couldn't do the same long/high jumps with Mario and it brought out some great rage moments for me. Especially the second playthrough to get that coin.

Man, with all these memories, I have such a hard time remembering DK64 as a bad game.

[Daxdiv]

It was mostly because of my nostalgia of Donkey Kong 64, that I decided to download the Jetpac Refulled off of Xbox Live as soon as I got my Xbox 360 Connected after I bought it for my 19th Birthday. It was basically the same game that I remember playing on DK64, but with the new twists they made for the remake.

With that said, it wouldn't surprise you if I said that I enjoyed what I've played of Viva Pinata, now would it? I thought that out of Rare's recent Xbox 360 outings, this was their best game in my opinion, and I am not kidding on this one. Maybe it's the part of me that loves collecting different kinds of creatures in me that's talking, but I found a lot to like about Viva Pinata, from the food puns of the animals, to the designs, and even that CGI cartoon that aired on 4Kids block.

[Foggle]

Good lord, yes, Donkey Kong 64's multiplayer was ace!

[Spark Of Spirit]

Conker's multiplayer was insane. I was playing that one for years with my friends.

[Foggle]

Conker's multiplayer was insane. I was playing that one for years with my friends.

Unfortunately, I never really had a chance to play Conker's multiplayer (Live & Reloaded doesn't count...).

[Spark Of Spirit]

Conker's multiplayer was insane. I was playing that one for years with my friends.

Unfortunately, I never really had a chance to play Conker's multiplayer (Live & Reloaded doesn't count...).

To this day, I'm not sure why they removed the multiplayer modes from the original in the port. They had a bunch of vastly different modes with different gimmicks that made them tons of fun to play through.

I don't really know why they took them all out for, they were some of the best parts of the game.

[gunswordfist]

Old school Rare is honestly my favorite developer of all time. From Jet Force Gemini to Donkey Kong Country 2 to Battletoads, they've made a lot of games I love. I don't know too many developers that have had a track record as good as theirs. Everyone knows Sega and Nintendo have been pissing me off but I think Rare has been great even up until they became Free Radical. I believe TimeSplitters 2 was their last great game. I haven't played TP3 yet so I have no comment on that. I also like Second Sight. That's a solid overlooked game. So yeah, unlike probably all of the other old names, I think Rare was great up until their dying breath.

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

Rareware didn't become Free Radical. Free Radical formed after 007 wrapped up and a number of Rare employees left to create that studio. Rare continued on and in 2002, was absorbed by Microsoft's game division and they still exist today.

[Spark Of Spirit]

And Free Radical made Haze and killed themselves. Crytek basically bought them up and use whatever's left as Crytek UK.

Unfortunately, they're sitting on the Timesplitters IP and don't seem to want to do anything with it.

[Foggle]

And Free Radical made Haze and killed themselves.

That game... had some of the worst dialogue I've EVER fucking heard. Yes, I know it's because the soldiers are extremely high all the time, but it was just downright terrible.

The gameplay and story weren't half bad though, barring the fact that the former was fairly generic and the latter had its major plot-twist revealed in its advertisements pre-release.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I just couldn't believe they made that before a proper Timesplitters game for the new consoles.

In gaming, you do the safe game first BEFORE the radically new one or else it could tarnish your name and brand or at worst... well, at worst you get what happened to FR after Haze.

I just played through the single player in Future Perfect last year and it was still awesome and fun. They clearly hit it right enough with the TS series, so it was a shame that we lost it because of this monumentally bad decision. (Not to mention canceling an FPS on the Xbox 360 is just plain nutty like canceling a mascot platformer on the SNES)

[Foggle]

It was supposed to be on the PC, as well. There's an idea, cancel it on the two platforms people usually buy FPS games for to release it on the system that not only has the shittiest online service but also costs $500+ (at the time, I mean)! Brilliant!

[Spark Of Spirit]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=421821

I really wish that rumor of the Stamper Bros. opening a new studio in the old Rare building and gathering old employees was true. There are some talented folks out there who don't deserve this crap happening to them.

I'm pretty certain they're on their last legs now.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The creator of Conker speaks out.

[Avaitor]

Sounds about right. Imagine all the stuff they could've made if Rare stuck with Nintendo.