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REVIEW: RARE REPLAY (Xbox One)

5/8/2015

16 Comments

 
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It's difficult to overstate the impact a new Ultimate Play The Game release had back in the 80s. Indeed - fatty - the company that would later become Rare seemed more like alchemists than game developers. 

Though hindsight suggests we were all idiots, back then it felt like the company's games were nothing short of interactive cartoons; Atic Atac, Jetpac, Knight Lore, Underwurlde, Sabrewulf... the names alone still render us dangerously swollen and clammy.

As the home computer market farted into its own face, and atrophied, the Ultimate brand got sold off to the doomed jackanapes at US Gold. Those left behind rebranded as Rare, clambered astride Nintendo, and somehow more or less lost us with titles such as the needlessly tough Battletoads. 

But hold! The story doesn't end there. Rare remerged on the N64 with the peerless and groundbreaking Goldeneye, the less groundbreaking, but utterly likeable, Banjo-Kazooie, and the puerile whimsy of Conker's Bad Fur Day. Thus ensued a sort of second heyday for the company, before things went a bit wrong again, when it started producing games for Microsoft. Perfect Dark Zero failed to recapture the earlier heights of that two-game series, and it has - barring a few curious diversions with Kinect Sports - been thus ever since.

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RARE REMAINS
Nevertheless, the early goodwill banked by Ultimate and Rare has seen it through. We live in hope that the company will recapture past glories (the upcoming Sea of Thieves looks like its best chance for some time), and it's why this anthology of old games has been warmly embraced by so many thighs.

Notably, all the games mentioned above - barring Goldeneye - are included on this anthology. It's a selective history of the company, the missing games a result - we assume - of Nintendo licensing issues. So, no Goldeneye, and nothing from the Donkey Kong series. Also, there are a few jarring absences from the early history of Ultimate. Those hoping to play Pssst or Cookie on their big HDTV will be gravely disappointed.

What remains is a mixed bag in terms of quality. Many of the games aren't as good as we remember - specifically, most of the Spectrum titles (barring, perhaps, Jetpac) are crippled by age, Jet Force Gemini is lumbered with an insane control scheme (UPDATE: Rare have issued a patch offering a less mental control system - more here), and Viva Piñata is just too darn hard. Others are better than we recall... specifically the first Perfect Dark (which we somehow never connected at the time) and Xbox 360 launch title Kameo. Others still are exactly as good as we recall; we defy anyone not to enjoy the three Banjo-Kazooie games, Blast Corps or Jetpac.


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BARGAIN
There are 30 games here in total, mostly untouched from their original incarnations, via the esoteric miracle of emulation. 

Bonus content bleeds through in the form of NES Remix-type mini games - which make those early Spectrum titles somewhat more palatable - and a pick n' mix tub of archive footage and interviews. The latter are, frustratingly, locked away behind a wall of achievements. It's a bit of a weird choice, and - frankly - so difficult are most of the achievements to complete that it's unlikely that anybody but the most obsessive and dogged is going to watch all of the footage.

Still. However you look at it, here's 30 games for £20 quid, by one of the intermittently greatest game studios of all time. Rare may not always hit a homerun, it might not be the company it once was, but here's a solid reminder of why the brand still endures. 

SUMMARY: No Goldeneye or Donkey Kong, and they're not all classics... but great value for money nonetheless. 
SCORE: 1,983 out of 2,015

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
  • REVIEW: ANGRY BIRDS 2 (iOS/Android)
  • REVIEW: SPLATOON (Wii U)
  • REVIEW: SCREAMRIDE (Xbox One/Xbox 360)
16 Comments
Antony
6/8/2015 04:20:35 am

Never having owned a speccy, I'm thrilled to get the chance to play some of the old games, although sad but unsurprised to see you say they've not aged well. Main attraction though, is blast corps, my all time favourite game, without digging out the n64. 20 quid bargain!!!

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Doc Strange
6/8/2015 05:09:48 am

I remember spending days on Atic Atac in 1984. (A lot of that time was spent loading the tape and reloading if it crashed but that still counts as playtime as I always found the warbled loading sound added to the creepiness.) I fired it up last night and the nostalgia was incredible. I had no fucking clue what to do. I'd forgotten everything. I literally just ran about for twelve minutes and then exited the game. It felt like I had gone through a portal into my seven year old self and was panic-spunking through a moment of my life I should never have been allowed to live again. Like Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle I had ruined the perfect pool with my dirty perfection-testing instrument. Nostalgia is a lie we enjoy telling ourselves.

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Ed Comment
6/8/2015 05:04:29 am

Oh to remember the days when Digi reviewed Jet Force Gemini, slapped a whopping 93% on it. Then let the letters section overruneth with the tears of Nintendo fans angry they ranked it higher than Donkey Kong 64 and Sega fans still angry that Soul Calibur wasn't declared the second coming of Jesus and Powerstone was given a better review (Which was right because Powerstone was still better). Twas the the best of times for that reveal button, I tells ya

Totally right JFG is unplayable these days and a Dual stick patch is needed. How it actually controlled well on the N64 in the first place is a miracle of the universe or Rare sacrificing tramps to the elder gods.

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Doc Strange
6/8/2015 05:12:10 am

I think they just patched that exact issue.

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Mr Biffo
6/8/2015 11:52:39 am

Indeed...! I just updated the review to reflect that.

Ed Comment
7/8/2015 04:09:41 am

They did and plays significantly better. Camera is still a bit wonky but it feels super fast and zippy compared to what it was before. A really interesting change.

Simon
6/8/2015 05:33:54 am

Only bought the collection for Jet Force Gemini, Conkers BFD and Perfect Dark so everything else is a bonus.

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Voodoo76
6/8/2015 05:53:29 am

There's no way I'd waste my money on this (I haven't got a Xbone).

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Matty link
6/8/2015 11:34:52 am

Have they sorted the controls on those old Spectrum games? Recent replays reveal most of them to be pretty good barring the awful controls (especially the "rotate-and-move" thing used in the 3D titles) with Pentagram, in particular, basically unplayable as a result.

Why they've left Cookie and Pssst, two fun pick-up-and-play titles off the collection I can't fathom. I presume they've managed to leave in the overrated, annoying Underwurlde.

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Mr Biffo
6/8/2015 11:53:23 am

Not really. The controls feel a little more robust, probably because you're playing on the joypad. But for the most part the Spectrum games are warts n' all.

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Andihero link
6/8/2015 01:11:43 pm

I've spent the past few days dangerously addicted to the Snapshot mode. An absolutely brilliant way to get people playing the older titles who may not have a powerful nostalgia for them. Shame they didn't extend that stuff to the N64 titles too.

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MerseyMal link
6/8/2015 02:31:19 pm

How do you enter the POKEs to get infinite lives?

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fozzy
7/8/2015 03:22:39 am

Just got and installed it,boy some of them look rubbish frankly and given that im 50 i played a fair number of the earlier titles in my callow youth,they are pretty crappy lets be fair but it was play that or read the tv times,happy days.

The banjo games are always great fun,shame they couldnt recapture the game for the 360 as i thought nuts and bolts was crap frankly,but never did get round to playing perfect dark (too expensive at the time if i recall rightly)and Kameo which i never thought would ever come out,so for me the 20 quid is money well spent for those 2 games alone

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Simon
7/8/2015 09:09:52 am

for Perfect Dark you had to buy that £20 expansion pack if memory serves. Was a complete rip off but worth the money as the game was so good

And the problem with all retro games is that games in general age so fast that if you don't play them at the time you never appreciate them as someone only a year later will steal the formula and improve on it. Plus improved graphics etc

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Mr Biffo
7/8/2015 12:29:04 pm

Totally agree. I dunno why I remembered being disappointed in PD, though. It's proper excellent.

Pevin
10/8/2015 11:30:16 am

I checked out my PD cartridge again recently and found that my old player profile on there was called 'Knuckletwat'. I loved that game.




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