Did Nintendo dump RARE because of Starfox?

[Shannon]

I was just reading the review on the new Starfox game and it reminded me of back when the first Starfox was released for the Gamecube. I remembered that there was apparently some conflict between Nintendo and RARE in regards to the direction of the game that turned into Starfox. Nintendo wanted Starfox, RARE wanted Dinosaur Planet.

 

Anyways as we know the result was less than expected and not too shortly afterwards Nintendo pretty much dropped RARE like a bad habit.

 

So is that why Nintendo dumped RARE? I\'m fairly aware of the \"official statement\" but I hardly believe it.

[JB]

I think Nintendo dumped Rare because it takes them a decade to get anything done.

 

Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were BOTH supposed to be on the N64. Then the GameCube. Then the XBox. And FINALLY MS forced them to release something for the 360. Unpolished and mediocre, perhaps, but... they actually released something!

[moycon]

Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were BOTH supposed to be on the N64. Then the GameCube. Then the XBox. And FINALLY MS forced them to release something for the 360. Unpolished and mediocre, perhaps, but... they actually released something!

 

Hu? I dunno about PDZ. I've only played through the first level some time ago, and never took it online, but personally I thought Kameo looked and played AWESOME. I was really suprised by that one. Probably would be in my top 5 best looking 360 games...and it was a launch title. Altho I guess like you said, they had plenty of development time.

[Mayhem]

Microsoft had already bought Rare before Starfox Adventures was released btw.

[Flojomojo]

Dinosaur Planet was going to come out on the N64, but got delayed and pushed back to the next Nintendo system, the Cube.

 

I agree that they dumped RARE because the company's output was no longer worth it to Nintendo. Many of the principals from the company left after Goldeneye to start Free Radical. Perfect Dark on N64 was late, and from the numbers of surplus copies I've seen in the stores, underperformed at retail. Donkey Kong 64 was probably also too little, too late.

 

Microsoft paid $377 million for the company and Nintendo was happy to get the money. It was probably a good deal for both.

 

I was excited about the new Rare games (Kameo and Perfect Dark) until I got them home ... nice graphics, but there's something really off-putting about their designs and voiceovers lately. Viva Pinata looks great in screenshots, but once they start putting their characters and level designs in there, I just want to run away.

[ninjarabbit]

Rare was one of the most overrated developers out there, even before they got bought out by Microsoft. Goldeneye was the only really great game they did with Nintendo. The DKC games were average platformers with flashy graphics, the Killer Instinct games seemed to be more of a parody of fighters at the time, the Banjo games, Jet Force Gemini, and DK 64 were collectathons that were basically Mario 64 rip-offs, Conker was an average game with toilet humor, and Perfect Dark just didn't have the same magic Goldeneye did.

 

And for the money Microsoft paid for Rare they got the worst game Rare probably ever did (Grabbed by Ghoulies), a N64 remake (Conker) two very average 360 games (PDZ and Kameco), and more games for the GBA than for Microsoft's own systems.

 

I remember how a bunch of people were freaking out when Microsoft bought out Rare and how everyone thought it would be the end of Nintendo. Look who's laughing now.

[Tan]

i think buying RARE to have them make games for them was only 1 of the reasons they did it, i also think with any major buyout your also getting the expertise and expierience of those members who can contribute to other Microsoft Game Studios projects and teams.

[sega saturn x]

I'm suprised the rare name holds any power anymore at all, since the last truly great game the made was put out ten years ago. And the best game the made since though was kameo which got average scores up and down the bored and sure as hell didn't make anyone run out and buy a 360.

[8th lutz]

It was more to do with the time of releasing games and rare is overrated nowdays. They did good games in the past like Captain Skyhawk for the nes. They haven't done anything really great since the n64 days.

[figgler]

They did good games in the past like Captain Skyhawk for the nes.

 

Most true quote o' the day. I friggin love that game. It might be my favourite of their's from that era. Second to Pin Bot of course.

[Shannon]

Well it is true that rare did seem to take forever to get stuff out especially after half of them split \"literally\" over to the timesplitter team. But despite the \"averageness\" of the DKC games on the SNES, they sure did a good job of rejuvinating the SNES\'s life a little. The DKC where obviously considered good enough by Nintendo to re-release on the GBA.

 

But who knows how much nintendo\'s involvement delayed N64 releases. It was not uncommon for them to delay game releases so they could get their own releases out on time. In fact I thought Conker got delayed because of them and to ask RARE to change Dinosaur planet into a Starfox game surely had to cause some delay\'s.

 

Good games by rare (IMHO) were the DKC series, Golden Eye, Diddie Kong Racing, the Banjo Kazooie series, Perfect Dark (yes I\'m probably one of the few people that liked the original Perfect Dark) mostly for the multiplayer stuff and not the storymode. From DK64 and on their games pretty much turned into collectathons.

 

As for the microsoft buyout. That alone should be proof that RARE is slow about getting games out considering how few titles the released over the lifetime of the xbox. But I still kinda think Nintendo did have a little bit of influence on slowing things down in their N64 days.

[JB]

Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were BOTH supposed to be on the N64. Then the GameCube. Then the XBox. And FINALLY MS forced them to release something for the 360. Unpolished and mediocre, perhaps, but... they actually released something!

 

Hu? I dunno about PDZ. I've only played through the first level some time ago, and never took it online, but personally I thought Kameo looked and played AWESOME. I was really suprised by that one. Probably would be in my top 5 best looking 360 games...and it was a launch title. Altho I guess like you said, they had plenty of development time.

I've heard Perfect Dark is pretty obviously unfinished.

 

Kameo I've played in demo units, and I don't think anyone setting those up is competent. Between the various forms of artifacting sprawled all over everything and the mismatched aspect ratios, it's hard to say what the system's actually doing, visually.

I thought the game was a neat concept, but the implementation needed a bit of polish. But again, I've only played the demo.

[sega saturn x]

I think those donkey kong country games get way more attention than they really should. They are very polished but very bland platformers, the third is is especially bad. Now I like the first two quite a bit but still they are way over rated.

[n8littlefield]

I think Nintendo sold them because they saw that they could unload what was basically just a name at that point. Like someone else pointed out, much of the team had left to form Free Radical, so really all they were losing were a few of the Rare characters.

 

And the funny part is, Rare is still developing for the GBA and DS - so Nintendo sells Rare, gets a ton of cash for that, yet still gets Rare games on their handhelds!

[Shannon]

Yeah no doubt nintendo walked out with the good side of this deal. Rare had long since ceased to be a decent developer and pretty much a name as people said.

[moycon]

Kameo I've played in demo units, and I don't think anyone setting those up is competent. Between the various forms of artifacting sprawled all over everything and the mismatched aspect ratios, it's hard to say what the system's actually doing, visually.

I thought the game was a neat concept, but the implementation needed a bit of polish. But again, I've only played the demo.

 

Ahh, Yeah that's probably why I was suprised. When I played the demo units in the retail stores, I really didn't think too much of the game. Visually the systems doing everything, there is no FMV if that's what you mean. And later on when your on a vast battle field surround by thousands of trolls your jaw will drop (Unfortunately that's not in the demo). In fact based on the demo I probably wouldn't have bought the game...at least not new for $50. I had my eye set on Condemned and Perfect Dark Zero at that time. It turned out I wound up snagging a bundle with both Kameo and PDZ and I gotta say after playing both it's obvious what turned out to be more impressive. I played through Kameo and don't think I played beyond the 1st level of PDZ. If you have a 360 I'd snag Kameo for sure especially since it can probably be had for $20 now. I still haven't even tried to play on-line co-op with it, I was just impressed as hell at the single player mode.

 

I think too many people past judgement on the demo version. That is one Rare game that I think is WAY under appreciated. PDZ... Yeah that was just kinda meh. I'm still looking forward to Viva Pinata. At least Rare try's to be different, that's more than can be said about a LOT of game producers.

[JB]

As far as Donkey Kong Country goes...

Has anyone else gotten sick of hearing about how it pushes the SNES to levels unreached by anything else?

Seriously, the way people talk you'd think the game was rendered in real-time instead of using the exact same techniques as Super Mario World(oversimplification, but you get the point).

 

Ahh, Yeah that's probably why I was suprised. When I played the demo units in the retail stores, I really didn't think too much of the game. Visually the systems doing everything, there is no FMV if that's what you mean.

Naw, nothing like that. Just meant it's hard to gauge the actual image quality when it's buried under stretching, dot crawl, and dithering. The demos I've seen have been complete disasters(and an excellent argument for CRT TVs).

 

If you have a 360 I'd snag Kameo for sure especially since it can probably be had for $20 now. I still haven't even tried to play on-line co-op with it, I was just impressed as hell at the single player mode.

I'll have to keep an eye out for the game.

 

I wind up with every system eventually anyways, may as well be honest about it upfront.

 

I think too many people past judgement on the demo version. That is one Rare game that I think is WAY under appreciated.

The demo made me more interested than most of the other games on the system.

It just wasn't compelling enough to be a major title, based on the demo(which apparently did the game a serious dis-service).

[2600Lives]

Am I the only one who liked Starfox Adventures? I thought it was a very well done platformer. The challenge level was just absolutely perfect. Sure the story was throwaway, but the game itself really shines in my opinion. Now, as for SF Assault, I actually didn't like that one. It looked like the graphics took a step backwards, more like a late generation 64 game, especially as far as the character models were concerned. Of course, Starfox 64 is still the reigning king of the SF games, no question there.

[dgo]

Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo were BOTH supposed to be on the N64. Then the GameCube. Then the XBox. And FINALLY MS forced them to release something for the 360. Unpolished and mediocre, perhaps, but... they actually released something!

 

Hu? I dunno about PDZ. I've only played through the first level some time ago, and never took it online, but personally I thought Kameo looked and played AWESOME. I was really suprised by that one. Probably would be in my top 5 best looking 360 games...and it was a launch title. Altho I guess like you said, they had plenty of development time.

 

 

I totally agree about Kameo. graphically still one of the best xbox360 tiitles imo. Other than the terrible control scheme with one particular character (I can't remember it's name,the one which swims under water) a fantastic looking game, with brilliant gameplay.

Edited September 1, 2006 by dgo

[Shannon]

I dunno... I was never really fooled by the DKC rendering hype. But I still liked it alot as a game.

[JB]

I dunno... I was never really fooled by the DKC rendering hype. But I still liked it alot as a game.

I figured the average AA user was intelligent enough to know that pre-rendered didn't mean a whole lot. But it seems to pop up disturbingly often everywhere else.

 

I guess I sorta started ranting there...

[sega saturn x]

Am I the only one who liked Starfox Adventures? I thought it was a very well done platformer. The challenge level was just absolutely perfect. Sure the story was throwaway, but the game itself really shines in my opinion. Now, as for SF Assault, I actually didn't like that one. It looked like the graphics took a step backwards, more like a late generation 64 game, especially as far as the character models were concerned. Of course, Starfox 64 is still the reigning king of the SF games, no question there.

Wait what? Star fox assualt does not look like a late 64 titles it's one of the best looking cube games out there.

Edited September 1, 2006 by sega saturn x

[liveinabin]

Rare are a bit of a waste of time now anyway. Everyone who really contributed to the greatness of their work (up to Goldeneye) has left. All you have now is a games developer no better than any other third party living off past reputation.

[shadow460]

I might be one of the few people whose original Perfect Dark game gets more play time than Goldeneye. I hardly ever play Goldeneye anymore, although it's an awesome game.

 

The only games that I really enjoy from Rare are KI2/Gold, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and Wizards and Warriors.

The rest? I'll pass.

[Video]

I don't think any of Rare's games are crap though. And that's the real thing. Most companys out there can do good games, and most will do bad games, but Rare pretty much does good ones, and occasionally, great.

 

And most of that is probably due to not being a game mill like so many other companys, who just release a new one every 3 months or so.

 

Nintendo definately got the good end of the deal though, especially since the buyout didn't include handheld games.