Super Secret Bovine Bonus

by Lerako on Dec 30th, 2011

You’ve found it! It’s the Super Secret Bovine Bonus!

Right – it’s time to reveal one of Rare’s largest secrets; the explanation behind an enigmatic tribute that has reared its heifer head in many a Rare title…

The Super Secret Bovine Bonus was originally meant to be used within the Nintendo 64 title, Blast Corps as an extra mode of play. Very little is known about this feature, but it would eventually find a home on Rare’s official webpage during the late nineties where a secret page harboring a chance at Rare merchandise shared the namesake of the cancelled Blast Corps feature.

So would begin the clues to unlock the real Super Secret Bovine Bonus…

Rare’s portable division was especially fond of cattle, and in a brazen move that was equal parts secrecy and insanity, they began to sneak in the illusive Rare Cows as a background detail within their releases to be found by players.
The Rare Cow has been spotted in Conker’s Pocket Tales, Donkey Kong Country GBC, Perfect Dark GBC, Mickey’s Racing Adventure, Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge and Mickey’s Speedway USA. There may even be more cows to be found by savvy players, but for now they remain hidden, chewing their cud, laying in wait…

What is certain is that these Rare Cows allude to something much larger than a series of Easter Eggs…

The Banjo-Kazooie series also has an interesting relationship with this farmyard fodder. The letters ‘C’, ‘H’, ‘E’, ‘A’ and ‘T’ can be used to enter a string of Cheat Codes on the Sandcastle floor of Treasure Trove Cove – each time players do so however, their efforts are met with mooing from an unseen cow.
Milk cartons have also been spotted in Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, Banjo-Tooie and Grabbed by the Ghoulies, referencing a cownspiracy that ties all Rare titles together.
Even cheese, which is known to come from cows have been seen in Perfect Dark, hidden away in a similar manner.

Clearly Rare wanted to cement these cryptic clues reserved for players only on the hunt for the truth, and we now know what Rare has been hiding in their Twycross Studios.
The pieces all fit into place when a few bits of easily missed details are considered:

1) Most Game Development studios are found within citites, whereas Rare is found in the countryside…
2) The studio itself has a very high level of security, unusually high for just day to day development…
3) The Twycross Studio has each teams working from barns, quite odd for a contemporary office.
4) Rare’s propery extends to encompass fields, pastures and bubbling streams, an absurd focus on wildlife in an office space.

It all leads to one undeniable conclusion: Rare is made of Cows.

If you could only glimpse into the Twycross Studio you’d see them all – walking around, udders bobbing with every step. Artists, programmers, musicians – all working, all the time – all of them, Cows.
Surely someone has managed to catch sight of them once, an unfortunate developer from a rival studio that got a little too curious; they came to steal trade secrets but inadvertantly uncovered something more sinister.
They would catch Rare’s disinterested stares in the moonlight, marching over as they chewed their cud.
The night air would be filled with screams, as is custom on occasion, followed by silence as the Rare Cows overwhelemed their sabateour.
The horrors they’ve witnessed would be quashed, effectively silenced from the records of history.

They cannot keep it silent forever.
Let the word be known on this page, and this page alone: Rare is made of Cows.
They always have been and they always will be.
Rare is made of Cows. Rare is made of Cows. Rare is made of Cows.

Categories: News