Conker to return in Microsoft's Project Spark

Interesting choice going with Conker to sell it, the blurb that comes to my mind is:

"Project Spark: Isn't it a bit too early to be talkin' about gaming architecture?"

That article about the new Rare employees was just depressing. I remember when they announced they were going to jump the Nintendo ship and go to Microsoft; that seemed like a dark day for Nintendo (and I was, and still, to a much lesser extent, still am, a huge Nintendo fanboy), but in retrospect, that was about the only thing they did right during the GameCube generation.

I remember visiting the Microsoft site with them really pimping how they got the studio that made Goldeneye (which, technically, they hadn't, since the entire portion of that team had already left Rare and were making the ultimately pretty good Time Splitters games), and how they were working on great new games for Microsoft, complete with artwork from one of their newest games; Kameo. Yeah, there was a giant picture of a fairy with butterfly wings right in the middle of their thing. It didn't exactly go with the Xbox's theme, to say the least.

And then they finally released a game for the Xbox, and it was ... Grabbed By the Ghoulies. Umm ... Then, they remade Conker's Bad Fur Day, except they took out the actually pretty fun multiplayer of the N64 version, and replaced it with a multiplayer where, I shit you not, you literally shoot at a wall. Gee ... And that was it for the original Xbox, but they were lucky enough to somehow put out two games with the Xbox 360 launch; the aforementioned Kameo (which probably wasn't that bad, but nobody gave a shit at this point) and Perfect Dark Zero, which basically took a classic game from the N64 and took a dump on it, so, really, it's nice to hear they still exist at this point.

Because these people really used to make great games; I didn't know they were reduced to shitty Kinect sports games (I kind of lost track of the whole video game "console wars" thing when I started having to make my own money). I sincerely hope these new employees are just trying to sound enthusiastic about them when they say how "beautiful" they look, but Jesus Christ. Just ... Jesus Christ. How the mighty have fallen.

Rare only really worked at Nintendo; that's the thing about, say, the reporting on the new Super Smash Bros. game annoyed me about. Everyone was wondering when Nintendo would release a launch date for the game. Which is the stupidest thing ever, because holy shit, were you not paying attention with Brawl? When they release a date, the only thing you'll learn is that the next SSB game is not coming out that day. They're going to delay it, and then delay it again, because they put out games when they are good and goddamned ready. I've been playing Nintendo games on Nintendo consoles for three generations; you get used to it. You buy the console, you get the latest Legend of Zelda whenever it finally comes out, you get the latest SSB, and maybe if you're good, and eat your vegetables and say your prayers, you get a new Star Fox, and then you wait for the next generation console, and it is totally freaking worth it.

And Rare worked like that. Star Fox Adventures took seven friggin' years to make, and it's generally considered just okay (I love it to pieces, of course). Nintendo was cool with that; Microsoft, not so much. It happened to Silicon Knights, too. They made Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, a game that is fantastically scary, with Nintendo, and after they left ... started sucking. Hard. I played that crappy X-Men game they made; it blew my mind when I found out it was from the same company that made Eternal Darkness.

Seems to be a good E3 for old Rare furries to pop out of the woodwork; saw you Newsbyted the new Star Fox game. Hopefully we don't have redundant articles (because of course I wrote that one up). I was hoping Rare's lasting contribution to the Star Fox games would finally be revealed for SSB for the Wii U/3DS, but, oh, shit. Here comes Pac Man.

Hey, Pac Man! What's up!