Has Rare lost its touch? Grabbed by the Ghoulies Rated

Solid Snake · Oct 21, 2003

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/455/455857p1.html

Game got a 7.0 from IGN which is notorous for giving higher ratings for most games compared to everyone else. Now to be honest that isn't half bad but this coming from a company notorous for AAA titles, you have to question what is happening! So after the rather average reception Star For Adventure got, do you think Rare has lost its touch?

genjiglove · Oct 21, 2003

Didn't most of the people who made games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark leave Rare to form Free Radical? That might explain alot of it.

When you think about it, Rare hasn't made a good game in quite some time. Banko Tooie was boring as hell, Conker was just a long fart joke with mediocre gameplay, I didn't play Star Fox Adventures but I hear it's pretty average.

Hopefully, they'll get it together and make the new Perfect Dark game kickass.

Spike Spiegel · Oct 21, 2003

I'll be honest: Conker's Bad Fur Day was badass. No, not just the language, but the play control, puzzles, and so on. The multi-player was to die for.

I got Starfox, and what a POS, IMHO. I dind't care for it at all. Sad.

Spike

TheBigBB · Oct 22, 2003

Conker was so-so, the war part of it was really great stuff though.

SFA was mildly entertaining, but compared to any of the 3D Zeldas it's a pile of shit. It's just not worth more than $10.

DK64 was WAY too much of a collect-a-thon.

Now Grabbed the Ghoulies? Isn't that a British slang for grabbed by the nuts or something? I heard that... If that's true, it's pretty nasty of them! This is a game rated E, right? What if I made a family game called "Eating the Pussy" about a bad witch who eats cats? Well if I am wrong about this then let me know. It could just be a bad rumor. Well the game looked pretty EH from screens I saw, and it doesn't sound appealing. Maybe I'm just being too harsh?

Cranky · Oct 22, 2003

you guys played blast corps before? that game is just smashing!

Metal Fatigue · Oct 22, 2003

xbox fans will hate but I dont care, once MS bought Rare it was over. Maybe an impressive Perfect Dark or somethign down the road but I will still imagine the wonders Rare could have done on Cube.

roker · Oct 22, 2003

Nintendo is the reason behind the sucess of its 2nd parties (can't say the same for the guys that made Kobe Bryant Basketball

), but look at Silicon Knights' Eternal Darkness and Retro's Metroid, Nintendo's involvement ensured those titles would become hits.

Seriously though, many people are just anticipating something on par with GoldenEye. It was one of those games that anyone remotely involved with the project became recognized within the industry.

Other than GE, Perfect Dark was ok, Conkers' is an overrated platformer with laughs for teenagers (uncensored or not, the jokes get stale), Banjo licks balls, SFA licks balls, etc.

We'll see what Rare does with Perfect Dark 0 (or is it 2?) If they fail this time, then we can declare this a bad deal. It only takes one game to propel a software company (Bungie).

mog · Oct 22, 2003

Rare never had a "touch". Occasionally the stumbled into ideas that randomly had a high "touch" value but they're never consistently made good games. Everything they do is cookie cutter shit with only a few titles that break the mediocrity.

BlackSpy · Oct 22, 2003

dmhawkmoon said:
Conker was so-so, the war part of it was really great stuff though.

SFA was mildly entertaining, but compared to any of the 3D Zeldas it's a pile of shit. It's just not worth more than $10.

DK64 was WAY too much of a collect-a-thon.

Now Grabbed the Ghoulies? Isn't that a British slang for grabbed by the nuts or something? I heard that... If that's true, it's pretty nasty of them! This is a game rated E, right? What if I made a family game called "Eating the Pussy" about a bad witch who eats cats? Well if I am wrong about this then let me know. It could just be a bad rumor. Well the game looked pretty EH from screens I saw, and it doesn't sound appealing. Maybe I'm just being too harsh?

Quite right on the slang spot.

Shred · Oct 22, 2003

NeoFight said:
xbox fans will hate but I dont care, once MS bought Rare it was over. Maybe an impressive Perfect Dark or somethign down the road but I will still imagine the wonders Rare could have done on Cube.

More than likely they would be releasing the same games just for the cube instead of the XBox.
These games don't just pop up over night they more than likely were already planned for quite a while before Microsoft bought them.

Personally I think this could be a fun game to just mess around with and have fun. That is what these games are for right.
And anyone who doesn't agree with me oh well that is your problem not mine. If you don't like it then just don't buy it its as simple as that.

Spike Spiegel · Oct 22, 2003

Cranky said:
you guys played blast corps before? that game is just smashing!

Uh, yeah... but the question is, are they not good ANYMORE? They were brilliant many years ago, just as you describe.

Spike

RabbitTroop · Oct 22, 2003

dmhawkmoon said:
Conker was so-so, the war part of it was really great stuff though.

SFA was mildly entertaining, but compared to any of the 3D Zeldas it's a pile of shit. It's just not worth more than $10.

DK64 was WAY too much of a collect-a-thon.

Now Grabbed the Ghoulies? Isn't that a British slang for grabbed by the nuts or something? I heard that... If that's true, it's pretty nasty of them! This is a game rated E, right? What if I made a family game called "Eating the Pussy" about a bad witch who eats cats? Well if I am wrong about this then let me know. It could just be a bad rumor. Well the game looked pretty EH from screens I saw, and it doesn't sound appealing. Maybe I'm just being too harsh?

Yes, your slang is right... and "Eating the Pussy®" will be shown at E3 2004... can't believe someone leaked that already... DAMN!

-Nick

evil wasabi · Oct 22, 2003

nruva said:
Yes, your slang is right... and "Eating the Pussy®" will be shown at E3 2004... can't believe someone leaked that already... DAMN!

-Nick

Any word on whether Paddling the Pink Canoe, that game with an indian whose sexual orientation is questioned for his choice of canoe color must fight persecution down the banks of the Mississippi, is still slated for an 04 release or not?

Gabriel K · Oct 22, 2003

mog said:
Rare never had a "touch". Occasionally the stumbled into ideas (...) but they're never consistently made good games. Everything they do is cookie cutter shit with only a few titles that break the mediocrity.

*nods* Finally someone who sees it like I do. Rare might have had some good moments, like Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, DKCountry 1, KI1, but damn, Battletoads, Battletoads and Double Dragon, DK Country 2/3, KI2, DK64, Conker, etc, were really bad... Like Dr. Evil bad. Die, Rare, die.

Instead of wasting money on Rare, I'd have really liked MS to get more Sega games. Crazy Taxi 3, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Sega Rally, Shenmue 2, Toe Jam & Earl, Gunvalkyrie, Otogi, and others aren't enough! I want Sega Ages and Shinobi to be on my Xbox! Come on!!!

PS: Sega was the reason I bought an Xbox.

toy_brain · Oct 22, 2003

I've always enjoyed RARE's games on the N64. I really got into the likes of Banjo Tooie, Conkers BFD, Jetforce Gemini and Blast Corps. I also enjoyed SFA - thought it was a fine way to spend 20 hours.
But GBTG's gameplay sounds kinda retarded. Having to fight ghouls under strict rules, and being killed if you break those rules. It sounds really aggrivating.
I dunno, I guess I'll still give this game a try because I have a lot of respect and patience for RARE, but I really hope Kameo is better.

johnroche · Oct 22, 2003

toy_brain said:
I've always enjoyed RARE's games on the N64. I really got into the likes of Banjo Tooie, Conkers BFD, Jetforce Gemini and Blast Corps. I also enjoyed SFA - thought it was a fine way to spend 20 hours.
But GBTG's gameplay sounds kinda retarded. Having to fight ghouls under strict rules, and being killed if you break those rules. It sounds really aggrivating.
I dunno, I guess I'll still give this game a try because I have a lot of respect and patience for RARE, but I really hope Kameo is better.

Wait... fight ghouls under strict rules...? I can't help but wonder what Square thinks about this... :spock:

bokmeow · Oct 22, 2003

There seems to be better things to do in the afterlife than try to cop a feel off of a fearless adventurer.

bokmeow · Dec 3, 2003

I played a demo of Grabbed by Ghoulies today. The 'strict rules' isn't as cool as it sounds, you basically have time limits, number of ghosts you must defeat, etc. The controls are performed with the two analog joysticks, which seems pretty intuitive except the number of different moves you can actually pull out is like old school Double Dragon style. There's not even a 'dodge' function like the one in River City Ransom, which just sucks hardcore. I'm sorry, but the gameplay just doesn't grab me, I rarely give a game two thumbs down after playing it, but Grabbed by Ghoulies earned (two thumbs down) cubed, fairly and squarely.

MilkManX · Dec 3, 2003

Best Rare game ever was Cobra Triangle. I still want a great sequel to that.

Lord_Yama · Dec 3, 2003

Rare only made two good games duringf the N64 days, GoldenEye and Perfect Dark. However, everything else they made since 1997 has sucked IMO. I haven't played Conker, but for a company so awesome in 1994 to suck so bad just a few years later was sad.

The gaming press is just a few years late to start to notice their absolute mediocrity.

IoriYagami n8 · Dec 4, 2003

I think a big problem is the kind of games Rare makes aren't really anything we haven't seen before. On the N64 Rare got a lot of attention due to lack of 3rd party support. A lot of Nintendo fans elevated them to the status of some kind of demi-god only second to that of Nintendo themselves. They have made some great games, yes; the majority of their games aren't really anything all that different though. More and more 3rd parties are able to put out good platformers and Rare just isn't keeping pace with new concepts. I think Nintendo saw how they had gotten stale and this is why they were so willing to let them go. Nintendo could have made the process much more difficult and yet felt no need to despite knowing who would pick up the pieces. I think Microsoft got burned pretty bad myself, of course, I was never a big fan of much that Rare did. But it doesn't seem like anyone here was.

TheBigBB · Dec 4, 2003

I played a demo of this today, too, and so I know what the game is like now.
It can be sort of fun, but it feels so shallow, really. You have such a limited control over what you're doing. Getting better at the game is a matter of knowing where the items are, standing in the right place, and maybe sometimes attacking at the right moment. To attack you just hold in the right analog, basically. All you can do is run around and attack or pick things up. You seem to have no more control than this! GIVEN THAT the game is almost a triumph, but that isn't saying much. The final room in the demo was hard as hell, but when I beat it I felt a lot more lucky than I did skilled.

And also the camera causes trouble. This game should have more of a fixed camera since it's just room-based. Instead it sits behind you. BIG NO-NO, RARE! Don't give a game a camera as if it was a 3D platformer when it's a room based brawler! You honestly cannot see what's coming more than half the time.

Tacitus · Dec 4, 2003

the roker said:
It only takes one game to propel a software company (Bungie).

Uhhh... Bungie's been making games for over 10+ years.. and they've been a monster company on the Mac.

Try again.

Bluevoodu · Dec 4, 2003

Rare.... lost their good staff once they left Nintendo.

Starfox 64, KI gold, Perfect Dark, Golden Eye, Blast Corps...etc.... were all good games.

but if you want to know where the staff went:
www.zoonami.com

And they are creating their games as they know how to..... SLOOOWW... DON't rush them out.... and make a few delays if you have to.

Being a Good developer does not mean making many games... and fast.... its about the quality you put into them.

Rare has lost it. they have changed perfect dark and you will see.

Microsoft/Rare stated (at the point in Which Msoft bought out rare) that there would be 3 games within the 1st year. Where are they?

Nintendo made a good decision to dump rare... and Msoft made a bad one buying them. The funny fact here is that Nintendo fans were mad at Nintendo for it.... but at the end of rare's life with NIN.... what did they make that was worth it anyway?

Anway, keep your eye on Zoonami... and check out their FAQ's .... they are hilarious..... the rumors section is even better

†B†V†

Has Rare lost its touch? Grabbed by the Ghoulies Rated

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