Mini-Scribes – January 26th 2012

by Lerako on Jan 26th, 2012

Q: How you doing guys? Just got some questions about Kinect Sports.
1. Are there any references to previous Rare titles? Maybe the ability to dress up your avatars in costumes that resemble Conker, Pimple and Joanna? The only thing better than that would be to have the characters themselves actually playable. Oh, that would be divine. You guys are long overdue for an all-star title, all the cool kids are doing it after all (Nintendo, Capcom, Konami, etc.) and in my opinion their characters just don’t have the same amount of personality that yours do.
…Actually that’s the only question I have about KS. Yup, that’s all. Have a nice day, and may ruination come swiftly to your enemies!
Josh

A: Thanks Josh! I hope we’re special and you don’t go around wishing ruination on the enemies of just anyone.
We had a similar question to this before… basically no, we floated the idea of a few classic Rare mascots, but there were concerns that too big a chunk of the wide-ranging Kinect Sports audience would have no reference point and start punching itself in the face in bewilderment. Anyway, I think you’ll find Rare’s character design strengths are all present and correct in the mascot world. Rapid Robot is a figure of cult adoration, Energetic Eye is just one big furry googly eye, and Zippy Zombie or Casual Cactus could easily pull off a shoddy platform game to rival Klungo’s.

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Q: My fellow Rare brethren and sisterthren,
The most terrible of things happened to me today. My N64 broke. For good. No more Banjo-Kazooie for me. Oh, how I mourned my loss. And with no Xbox 360 version to fall back on, I turn to you in this tragic time.
Rare, for the love of all things shiny and chocolate and covered in glitter that seems to stick to clothes, cushion covers, and meddling pets for countless years and never comes off, get the men upstairs in the suits and the hats to allow you to release BK on the Wii’s Virtual Console. Please!
Yours sincerely (and, let’s face it, somewhat desperately),
Ethan
P.S. Do you know any good dry cleaners?

A: Are you creepy Ethan out of Lost? Can’t see there being any dry cleaners on that island, but then again you never know what’s down those hatches. Wasn’t The Kurgan down one of them?
Right, yes, the question. Nintendo can basically add any or all of the Rare-produced games in their franchises (DKC, DK64, SFA) to Virtual Console, but anything else that’s still the property of Rare/Microsoft is far more likely to default to XBLA. Perfect Dark and Banjo were considered the biggest draws for an XBLA spit ‘n’ polish, so whether overhauls of any more Rare oldies will be judged ‘economically viable’, Michael Douglas style, is a whole other kettle of fish. We will of course keep you posted should there be any ripples in those waters.

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