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Video Games

By Mike - July 26, 2011

During the long, dog days of summer it seems that video game release dates are as rare and distant as your dreams of seeing a girl naked before the Mars Rovers are ever recovered. So instead of just sitting in the dark and sweating into a pile of old socks and ice cream sandwich wrappers, I thought I would take another look at a video game I haven’t played since shortly after Duke Nukem Forever was first announced and women were still second-class citizens.

Everyone has at least heard of Banjo-Kazooie, correct? Banjo is the loveable, semi-retarded bear who looks like Pedobear’s dumber cousin and has a vocabulary that sounds like a product of Alabama’s education system. Kazooie is the smart ass bird who seems to pop out of Banjo’s butt hole whenever you’re in need of a terrible joke, or a reminder of why you feel humiliated playing this game. Together they form Banjo-Kazooie, one of the best damn games I have ever played.

(After Alan just went on a hateful, racist tirade explaining his thoughts on the childish looking Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I feel kind of stupid promoting one of my favorite retro games of all time. But who am I trying to impress? You?)

So what can be said about Banjo-Kazooie? Well, visually it looks like someone ate enough Skittles to kill a baby elephant and then spent the night shitting rainbows into a Nintendo 64 cartridge. The audio is significantly worse, with sound effects which, over time, will make you want to jump off a balcony and pray to the gods you land on your neck. The game is riddled with awful puns, some of the characters speak only in rhymes that even a toddler would say are shitty and the story will make you reconsider using the gun you keep way in the back of your closet, right next to your sexuality.

Yet, I have such a prolific hard-on for this game that goes beyond any reason I can justify. The level design is tight, the controls are great and the music is perfectly complimentary. The same few tunes are played throughout the game, but they fade into different themed versions of the same songs according to the level you are currently approaching. It’s one of the earliest examples of an open 3D world and I must say that the game has aged remarkably well after all these years which is a hell of a lot more than Nick Nolte can say.

If this picture doesn't keep you clean and sober, nothing will.

Each level has a million items to collect which forces you to explore every square inch of the map, and the strange thing is that you want to find them, every fucking one like you were suddenly diagnosed with OCD and started snorting crushed amphetamines off your coffee table. When you’re not looking for puzzle pieces and scratching at your scabs, you’re trying to rescue Jinjos. When you’re not searching for golden music notes, Mumbo tokens, red feathers or extra lives, you’re keeping an eye out for your friends so that you can quickly switch back to Killzone 3 and be spared the ridicule.

Banjo-Kazooie has tons of atmosphere which I think is crucial to any good video game. You don’t know fear until you’ve collected ninety music notes, have only one honeycomb of health left and just fell into the water of Treasure Trove Cove and you hear Snackers coming to chomp on your ass. That cunt shark still gives me nightmares.

As annoying as some parts of the game are, as a whole it feels very balanced and all of its facets  work well together, kind of like the midgets I keep locked up in the cute little half-scale labor camp I built in my backyard. Like any good RARE game or filthy street drug, Banjo-Kazooie is extremely fun, addictive, and replayable. While I don’t think that I would have enjoyed the game’s style nearly as much if it had been released this day in age, I think it’s a great relic from a more innocent time in gaming, before realism, ultra violence, and tea-bagging reigned supreme.

Both Banjo-Kazooie, and its excellent sequel Banjo-Tooie have been re-released on Xbox Live Arcade and are well worth the few bucks. Go get them!

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Ignorant Geek Wisdom

• ...Nintendo offered everything that a gamer could possibly need except for a shower, a girlfriend and a single reason not to jump off a bridge.

  -Mike

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