Yooka-Laylee: N64 glory back in the flesh.

I love Rare. Who doesn’t? They’ve made some of the most universally-loved games ever. The ones that I remember most fondly are Banjo-Kazooie and Perfect Dark because, well, they’re just fucking awesome. When Rare was bought up by Microsoft I couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t ever see another BK game on a Nintendo console. It wasn’t until several years later that Nuts and Bolts was announced that I saw a glimmer of hope. I didn’t have enough money at the time to afford having bot a Wii and an Xbox 360, so I had to hold off my excitement for the announcement. Then the game came out and it was a completely different genre to BK and BT. Needless to say, I still don’t have an Xbox 360 because of it.

Anyway, most people lost hope by then.

Then a few of the key people from Rare left to go to set up Playtonic Games and start up a new project called Yooka-Laylee that is meant to be the spiritual successor to Banjo-Kazooie.

Now, Yooka-Laylee is still in its early stages and won’t be out in at least a year. So far the funding has been a success, breaking the record for fastest Kickstarter to reach one million.

Anyways, besides being a throwback to the 3D platforming style of the Nintendo 64, there are a few other things that the campaign will have to do with the N64.

One of the rewards packages will be the ’64-bit package’ that consists of a Nintendo 64-style box, a N64-shaped flash drive, manual and soundtrack. And the game, don’t forget about the game. All this for… £340?? Goddamn, that’s expensive.If it was £100 I might consider it, but £340 is way too pricey.

Yooka-Laylee will include a ‘N64-shader mode’. It’s not really clear what this means, whether it’s going to be a N64 filter like in FreezeMe, or whether it’s going to change the way the lighting, textures and the like are displayed altogether. Only time will tell.

I guess that’ about it for now. The Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee is still going to be active for another month and a bit, so be sure to show your support and this game will be even more awesome than ever!