Which, of course, begs the question as to why there’s a report about it here. As anyone with an internet connection and/or an N64 knows, GoldenEye’s popularity stems from the very game that Rare made over ten years ago, as well as the remake that is not to be. Based on this, as EA did with Goldeneye: Rouge Agent, it’s totally safe to say that “2010” is trying to exploit sales based on the GoldenEye name alone. We can guarantee that Rare won’t be involved with it because, as mentioned earlier, GoldenEye XBLA was finished, but Nintendo stopped its release when Rare/MS and Activision were perfectly willing to release it. This could explain why Goldeneye 2010, for now, seems to be exclusive to the Wii.

It’d be nice to see the existence of this new game justify having Rare’s remade version on XBLA (since, in a way, provided Goldeneye 2010 is exactly what it sounds like, both the 360 and the Wii have or had a graphically updated GoldenEye games in development), but it’s clear Nintendo wants to have the legacy of GoldenEye all to themselves, even if they weren’t entirely responsible for it.

While the verdict on Kameo is that it was a game that should’ve been longer considering the lengthy development cycle, the game itself was one of Rare’s better efforts in the current 360 era. It was a new IP, and one that was complimented by, among other things, Steve Burke’s fantastic soundtrack. The story at the end also led itself into possible sequel territory. Recently, a clip of progress on Kameo 2 surfaced, indeed confirming that it was in development at one point. We’ve embedded the video below:

As you can see, Rare’s latest trend (save for Trouble in Paradise, of course) of radically changing elements in sequels was to be present in Kameo 2, based on what little footage we just saw. Her climbing, wall-jumping, and sharp-object wielding animations give the impression that, much like Assassin’s Creed, Kameo 2 would’ve possibly gone the stealth route. Of course, with only 16 seconds of footage, it’s really hard to, unless you just genuinely love complaining about nearly everything on the internet, determine what the game could’ve been from it, let alone develop a love it or hate it verdict. If one could take a wild guess as to why Kameo’s sporting those clothes and movements, I’d probably say that it has something to do with the Mystic and possibly exile. After all, there’s more than meets the eye when it comes to her, and no good is guaranteed from someone who ominously laughs at the end of the game during the end credits.

According to Games Asylum, Rare’s Senior Software Engineer Nick Burton said that Kameo 2 started in 2007, but was soon canceled. With the date in mind, it’s safe to say that development was canceled in favor for Trouble in Paradise, since that and Nuts & Bolts were the two games that Rare focused on delivering in time.

While it’d be nice to imagine a Kameo sequel still being possible, it is a shame that a new IP didn’t get a chance to expand and become something more… even if the sequel looked like it would’ve been drastically different from the original.

• A secret level, like Ghoulies hinted at. (216 votes) – 41%
• Bottles’ Revenge as an unlockable. (135 votes) – 25%
• An epic Japanese Dating Simulator, starring Jolly Roger. (100 votes) – 19%
• A couple of new moves besides the Breegull Bash. (71 votes) – 13%

After a few months, we sent in our results to Rare. Gregg Mayles, most notably known as Banjo’s designer since day 1, had this to say:

“I think they missed an option:”

• “A deceptively clever way of linking all of Rare’s N64 titles together, that was tragically undone by technical irregularities – 0%”

But of course! I always suspected that I’d be able to transfer the Ice Key to unlock the true use of cheese in Perfect Dark, a few eggs to Bad Fur Day to play the version mentioned by a Rare employee that we were never meant to see, and a few more eggs to Blast Corps to play an even harder version! It makes perfect sense.

A program called Heartworks, the “first functioning interactive heart model”, serves as being able to assist scientists in performing complicated heart research. Thanks to the processing power of the Xbox 360, Heartworks is able to “calculate millions of mathematical equations relating to the proteins, cells, and tissues of the heart.” What makes this more interesting is that the 360’s processing power delivers these statistics “5 times faster and ten times cheaper” than PCs.

“Okay,” you might be thinking right now, provided you’ve gotten this far, “what does this have to do with Rare, exactly?” Good question. Dr. Simon Scarle is the answer. A Senior Programmer of Engineering at the University of Warwick in England, he originally found what the 360 can do thanks to his former job at Rare. During his time there, he created what he called “a little shooter game” where the player shoots enemies in an arena shaped like a heart. “I did a game-ified version of my old cardiac code. I could actually present some ‘proper’ science [based on] the cool things us game developers do,” Scarle added.

Well, there you have it. While it’s safe to say that Perfect Heart was just meant to be a prototype instead of a game planned for release (XBLA probably would’ve been ideal, considering the use of the word “little”), it’s always interesting to know what could’ve been, in terms of what lies behind closed doors in Twycross that normal folks will never be aware of. Plus, now whenever you hear people saying that videogames are the cause of all the evil in the world, you can now sound intelligent when you retort by saying that the 360 is used for science and medicine.

• First off, the Goldeneye XBLA quote. The lack of it on XBLA has broken many hearts (although Perfect Dark XBLA just so happens to mend most of those hearts based on the updated graphics and hopeful frame-rate) and has been very well-documented here. When asked on whether or not an agreement could be reached, Loveday responded by saying “that was some time ago, my friend. Fate was against us that day. Destiny conspired to raise the hurdles even as we attempted to clear them, resulting in unpleasant groinal injury. I suspect we’re long past the stage where an agreement was on the cards, but you never know. Stranger things have happened… somewhere… probably.” While it is a shame that we’ll never see it on either the Virtual Console or the Xbox Live Arcade, at least we’ll be getting the more superior version of the GoldenEye engine this Winter.
• In terms of Donkey Kong Racing, as much as the loss of that game hurt, what with the supposed logic of it being the sequel to one of the greatest Rare games ever made, apparently, Loveday believes “there was [n]ever all that much of Donkey Kong Racing,” further adding that “it’s not as if we’re talking tragically canned near-complete product here.”

• Now, here’s something interesting. When someone asked why Conker and Banjo didn’t appear in Super Smash Bros, the reasons were that Conker was only in DKR at the time and Banjo-Kazooie was also in development. However, “there were almost a boatload of Rare character trophies in Melee at one point, but it never happened.”
• Next up, we have the denials and non-denials of classic Rare games hitting the Virtual Console or Xbox Live Arcade. Loveday doubts that their GBA lineup (excluding the DKC series) will be hitting the XBLA “any time soon,” as well as him having “no idea why DK64 hasn’t shown up [on the VC] yet” and whether or not if Jetpac will make the port transition. On a somewhat positive note, when asked about whether or not the superior Conker’s Bad Fur Day (and in a later question, Jet Force Gemini) or other N64 Rare classics (sans DK64 and GoldenEye) will be hitting the XBLA, the “official” answer is “Possibly.” As someone who enjoyed BFD and knows Live & Reloaded isn’t earning them any more revenue (especially not as the as-of-yet unrevealed Xbox Original, provided they’re still going to go through with it), this is a wondrous possibility, indeed.
• Possible plans for an unreleased Rare game mentioned? In news that will undoubtedly make MR’s founder weep (no offense, boss/Alberto), apparently, “there were mutterings a while back” over a sequel to the cult classic Blast Corps, with Loveday further joking that the reason there wasn’t a sequel is because Rare can’t make sequels to “every game” they “ever do.”
• Further DS development isn’t ruled out, but for the moment, just like everything else, there’s nothing to announce. One can speculate, if not guess outright, that Project Natal is the reason for the lack of any future DS titles.
• Ghoulies, as usual, is denied the opportunity for a sequel, claiming that it’s “unlikely.” However, Perfect Dark and Conker sequels aren’t ruled out, but we may not be seeing them anytime soon.
• Last, but not least, some more answers regarding the game that everyone loves to hate: Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. As to why Banjo’s the only multiplayer character, the reason is due to the sizes of the other characters; apparently, they would’ve caused “so many issues,” so the decision to have dueling Banjos in the game’s multiplayer mode is because of that. As for DLC, there are no plans at the moment, due to the team working on “new, uber-cool projects.” Maybe that Banjo XBLA dating simulator Loveday joked about? Nah, it’s probably just a Natal game.

For more questions, answers, and the obligatory letter that makes Grammar Nazis want to commit suicide, you can check out the recent (and active!) Scribes page on Rare’s site.

After that, Microsoft trivialized Rare’s immediate lack of fan support by asserting that the British developer’s actual goal within Microsoft Game Studios was to bring the Xbox closer to a new type of audience. Yet that audience never took the bait. They simply kept playing their Wii games. Rare delivered some great games like Kameo and Viva Piñata, but the vast majority Xbox users and Microsoft itself seemed to be more interested in titles such as Halo and Gears of War.

So it comes as no surprise that Rare design director George Andreas saw a new chance to get back to that lost audience when Microsoft announced Project Natal. “I do feel in many ways that for me this is really the first time that Microsoft and Rare are on a very similar path,” he told VideoGamer. “We’ve obviously been tasked to create experiences that nobody else can create, which explains things like your Kameos and your Piñatas and your Banjos. But obviously the hardware is aimed at a different demographic, and so we’ve always battled against that.”

“Whereas now with Natal,” adds Andreas, “it looks like the roads are on the same path. It’s a union of the two philosophies of the different companies, I guess. Natal is supposed to reach out to a broader audience and a broader consumer, and Rare’s products are always aiming in that direction as well. So from that perspective the future looks incredibly bright for us really. It’s definitely something everyone’s enthused about and energised about.”

Now let’s hope that this means a clever, creative and quality response to all those dull games that, rather unfortunately, flood Wii’s catalogue right now.

Even though we may be very familiar with certain genres, that doesn’t mean those games will feel the same on the new system. “To take a shooter, as an example, you would just have to rethink the way a shooter works,” explained Andreas. “Shooters work the way they do at the moment because they’re based around the original Xbox 360 controller. You throw that away, you throw that interface away and here’s a completely different interface – now how do we create a shooter for this? Does it mean that you have to run, strafe, turn, throw grenades in the way that you’re used to? Maybe not. Maybe there’s another way of doing shooters.”

Consoles like Wii or Nintendo DS offered similar gameplay changes in the past, making Andreas’ comments about Natal even more true. “You’re probably not going to get exactly the same experience that you do with a conventional controller, but that could also be a very good thing,” he added. “There may be new avenues there that people haven’t explored yet that might open the product up to an even broader audience. We don’t know.”

Finally, trying to underline Natal’s versatility, Andreas didn’t hesitate to assure that shooters would be possible with its technology as opposed to what some prophets of doom have been predicting lately. “Can you do a shooter on Natal? Of course you can. Will it be exactly the same as something you’re used to on a control pad? The answer to that is probably not, but does that mean it’s better or worse? Well we’ll see what we can do.”

According to Andreas, it may mean seeing more of Rare’s classic IPs: “There are IP that we have looked at and are looking at and will be looking at in the future.”

In its heyday, Rare’s classics included the first two Banjo N64 titles, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Blast Corps, Killer Instinct, Goldeneye 007, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, and Diddy Kong Racing. Of course, with two of the mentioned IP belonging to Nintendo and Nintendo denying Goldeneye 007, those are IPs that are very unlikely to end up on Natal. Andreas states that “Natal… gives us an opportunity to maybe at some point in the future investigate some of those older IPs. I won’t name names.”

While he doesn’t name names, there is one IP that Andreas thinks would work: “One in particular actually I think we can do an absolutely phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal version on with Natal. The interface, the way you interact with it – I think it would be an absolutely world-beating product. But we need to explore a little bit more in that direction.” Andreas elaborates on the future of using old IPs by saying that “Yes, there are IP that we have looked at and are looking at and will be looking at in the future as well. So, never say never. Nothing is dead in the water. There is always scope to bring something back if we feel it’s the right time.”

As for the IP itself he’s thinking of? “I’ll keep that to myself for now.”

Of course you will. So, what do you think will be the classic IP revived for Natal? I believe that the ever-elusive Killer Instinct 3 could work if they found a way to map Ultra Combos to simple body movements. Perhaps a Battletoads revival could definitely use simple body movements to its advantage. Or maybe Rare’s “world-beating product” is a sequel to It’s Mr. Pants!

Anyway, Games on Demand is also one of those services. As reported earlier, we promised that we’d follow up on the prices. In the US, everything except VP: Trouble in Paradise is 1600 MS Points (or 20 dollars); Trouble in Paradise is 2400 (or 30 dollars). As the blurb up top describes, all of the games are apparently over 29.99 Euros (which is nearly 42.50 Dollars…).

I know this doesn’t really need to be said, but really, unless there’s no other way to get them online or in retail stores, you’re better off getting them somewhere else. Unless you have a specific dislike towards CDs, box cases and manuals, that is. As it stands, Ghoulies is the only Rare game that really needs the support. Even if we’ll never see the open-world setting of Ghoulies II.

Simply put, everything that’s not Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. Launch titles Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power will be available, as well as both Viva Piñata titles.

MundoRare will let you know the price range for each title as soon as it happens.