This article marks the first instance of the “Hyper Bowl” category of this site. Any article marked “Hyper Bowl” is going to be uninformed and indignant, or uninformed and enthusiastic. Which flavour Alex are you going to get in each Hyper Bowl? You’ll have to dig past the nonsensical metaphors and find out!
What have we here today? Why, we have a teaser for Banjo-Threeie:
Oh really, Rare? You think that you can continue the franchise that became your greatest bastian of lies?! I said to one of my friends, Hudson, that if Threeie fixed the problems of its predecessors I would forgive Rare. He said that he had forgotten the whole fiasco.
That’s exactly what they wanted an unsuspecting public to think! Rareware, making sequels on next generation platforms belonging to other publishers, so that no one will recall their crimes that shook the video gaming world six years prior!
All of the faithful Rare fans* have been following the highlarious taunting over the fact that Rare promised all of its fans** something that they never delivered on. I’d YouTube that of which I speak, but Banjo fans on YouTube are mad villains who set their bear and bird antics to delightful sounding samey songs that are probably trendy or emo or whatever the young folk are listening to nowadays.
Essentially, what happened was that, if you completed Banjo-Kazooie, the player would be treated to teasers of three secret items that could be unlocked within the game upon the release of Banjo-Tooie. The world threw their arms up and declared Rareware their awesome golden gods.
Three years passed. Banjo-Tooie was released. No mention of collecting these eggs, or the ice key; you just found them running around in “B-K” N64 carts.
There was no apology from Rare. There was no:
We couldn’t implement our plan, we prostrate ourselves before you for our hubris. For we were Icaruses (Icarii?)***, programming too close to the sun. Our chips got melted, but at least we gave you a theme park themed world and our game is pretty cool besides, and more forgiving than our previous.
No. We were treated like chumps.
To add insult to injury, Banjo and Kazooie look freaking hideous in this teaser. What does this all mean for me? I’m getting an XBox 360, and damned if I won’t get Banjo-Threeie for it.
Next I might go and campaign for communism in Germany: something that seemed like a good idea once but has since been rendered woefully out of date. History is cyclical, right? So, too, is the video game industry.
November 19, 2000: Never forget the lies, tyranny and oppression committed on this day.
*All six of them.^
**Back then, everyone with an N64 who wanted a high quality game or OCD flavoured collectathon.^
***In my imagination, the Rare staff will ask such questions as these to their captive audiences.^
Yeah, why does Banjo have a square nose? They look really freaky.