Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in Images | 5 Comments

Gregg Mayles, a former staffer at Rare, has been posting concept art from the Donkey Kong Country days. He hasn’t slowed down since then, as we have more images including early designs.

Here’s a roundup of the latest shots from Mayles:

More: Donkey Kong, Gregg Mayles, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Images | 5 Comments

Gregg Mayles, a former staffer on Rare, has been posting several images of concept art of Donkey Kong over the past few days on Twitter.

Here’s a look at everything that was shared:

Rare worked on several Donkey Kong games during the ’90s. These include Donkey Kong Country, Donkey Kong Land, and Donkey Kong 64.

More: Donkey Kong, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GameCube, Videos | 3 Comments

Before Microsoft acquired Rare, the studio was working on a few GameCube projects. One of these was Kameo, which would later end up on the Xbox 360.

Videos of Kameo during its GameCube development days have now appeared on the YouTube channel of user “ptoponline”. The footage shows a helper who was cut from the final game, different character designs, and more.

Continue on below for all of the unearthed videos.

Read More

More: Kameo, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, Videos | 1 Comment

The new Rare Replay package contains a pair of interesting videos. We get to learn about the making of Banjo-Kazooie as well as Conker’s Bad Fur Day. Both videos can be viewed below.

As a bonus, we’ve posted one more video after the break. Staffers talk about what makes a Rare game in it.

Read More

More: Banjo-Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 2 Comments

Banjo-Kazooie originally featured a very different partner. As revealed by former Rare staffer Gregg Mayles, Dinger the Dog was planned as Banjo’s partner during the game’s early days.

Steve Mayles, who was also working at Rare during Banjo-Kazooie’s development, mentioned that Dinger’s origins go back to the SNES. For those who are unaware, the studio was creating “Project Dream” for the SNES before it eventually became Banjo-Kazooie on the N64.

Source 1, Source 2, Via 1, Via 2

More: Banjo-Kazooie, Rare, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 29 Comments

Nintendo and Rare formed a tight relationship in the 1990’s. At one point, Nintendo held a 49 percent stake in the company. But in 2002, Nintendo as well as Rare co-founders Tim and Chris Stamper sold their stakes, and Microsoft took control of the game developer.

Some may wonder why Nintendo never ended up acquiring Rare. This is something that confounds Tim Stamper as well.

“I’ve no idea why they didn’t do that,” he recently said to Develop. “I thought we were a good fit.”

No matter who purchased Rare, Stamper did feel that change was necessary at the time. As he explained:

“The price of software development was going up and up with the platforms, and Rare works really well with a partner. We were looking for someone to help broaden our horizons.”

Source

More: interview, Rare, Tim Stamper

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 8 Comments

Back in the day, Rare had plans to create a follow-up to Perfect Dark. Velvet Dark would have acted as a “sister” game to the N64 title, according to former staffer Gregg Mayles.

Mayles shared a photo of Velvet Dark’s design document on Twitter earlier today:

Mayles indicated that Velvet Dark would have been an N64 title, but there’s some debate about that. This is a very interesting piece of gaming history in any case!

Source, Via

More: Perfect Dark, Rare, top

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 0 comments

Former Rare staffer Mark Stevenson shared a render of Donkey Kong wearing a mining helmet from Donkey Kong Country over on his Twitter account. Originally, the plan was for Donkey Kong to have it on during the cave levels. Stevenson explained that Squawks the Parrot ended up replacing the helmet.

Steve Mayles, another former employee from Rare, answered a question about King K. Rool that some fans have been dying to know:

Source

More: Donkey Kong Country, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in General Nintendo, News | 3 Comments

Rare created Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie, but the team never went on to develop a third platformer in the series for the N64. Some may wonder why.

Speaking with Kotaku, Grant Kirkhope indicated that it came down to fatigue. While Rare did go on to make Donkey Kong 64, they were a bit tired when it came to making 3D platformers, and Rare didn’t do too much else in that space.

As Kirkhope explained:

“I think with Tooie we were tired of it at that point. We’d done two games, and, if you do continual sequels—Rare didn’t like to do that—we didn’t want to do another Banjo game. And that’s why it kind of ended there.”

Source, Image source

More: Banjo-Kazooie, Grant Kirkhope, interview, Rare

Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in GameCube, Videos | 19 Comments

Perfect Dark Zero ended up on the Xbox 360, but that wasn’t always the plan. Rare was initially developing the title for GameCube before Nintendo sold off the studio to Microsoft.

Unseen64 shared a video today that shows concept art from a prototype Perfect Dark Zero build via an art gallery. It gives us a look at the different sort of art style Rare was originally toying around with during the GameCube era – something more cartoony and Japanese manga-inspired at one point. Take a look at the video below.

Source

More: Perfect Dark Zero, Rare