Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts Preview

Everyone's favourite bird n' bear combo is back! Okay, so we can't think of any others - but we're still happy.

The task we face is simple: drive across the land, collect three flaming boulders, and extinguish them by transporting them to a nearby lake. It doesn't sound too hard a challenge and we've been given a fairly sturdy-looking kart to work with - but that's not good enough for us. After all, this is Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts; the whole point is to build your own vehicles, right? Call us arrogant, but we think we can build a better machine for the job.

Two minutes later with the vehicle editor, and we're there: a sleek, wedge-shaped cart-thing, with six wheels. Sure, adding more wheels won't actually make us move any faster - but it looks cool. We load our new beast into the challenge. The countdown begins. We've never been more ready in our lives. And we're off!

Eagerly we tug at the right trigger. Nothing happens. We try again - but the kart remains at a standstill. What's happened? Has the preview build crashed? Is there a problem with the controller? No, we just forgot to give our car an engine. Great job, boys! Back to the drawing board. Literally.

While it was hardly our finest hour as gamers, this unusual setback was one of the many highlights of our recent hands-on with Nuts & Bolts - a wonderful moment that will stay with us for a long, long time. The shift away from traditional platform fare may be troubling some of Banjo and Kazooie's long-term fans, but we're delighted to report that from what we've seen and played thus far, this game is going to be an utter riot. We spent a good couple of hours with the game during our trip to Microsoft's secret fortress in Reading, so read on for the dirty details, captain.

The game kicks off with some typically wry B&K humour. It's been a decade since the last outing for the lovable bear and cheeky bird, and it's clear that the pair have been taking it easy. When we first meet them, they're eating pizza and listening to music; Banjo, in particular, is a bit out of shape - clearly the lack of adventuring has done no favours to his waistline. Soon we get an appearance from the heroes' arch-nemesis, Grunty the Witch, who is still no more than a disembodied head. Grunty's trying to get her hands on Spiral Mountain, and to stop her you must beat her in an on-foot race to collect musical notes - yet as the race begins, it's clear something is very wrong. Grunty is moving terribly slowly, being no more than a hopping skull - but Banjo is even slower! His pizza-fed belly has reduced his pace to a mind-numbing crawl. Grunty takes the lead, and frustration sets in - what the hell is going on?

In-game physics determine the handling of vehicles, so each component will affect how your creations drive.

Thankfully, it's a ruse - one of many jokes at the expense of "old-fashioned" platform gaming. Within moments we have been transported to Showdown Town - the level that serves as the main hub of Nuts & Bolts. Essentially, the premise of the new game is that Banjo and Kazooie must compete against Grunty in a series of challenges overseen by a mysterious new character named LOG - the Lord of Games. These tasks are set within several different game worlds, which are accessed via several portals littered around the hub. Showdown Town itself is populated by familiar characters from the Banjo series - Mumbo Jumbo the shaman has become a mechanic who helps you build vehicles, for example, while Bottles the mole dispenses tutorials and other advice. Between challenges, you'll be able to explore the city in your "shopping cart" - a wagon-shaped vehicle designed for transporting objects. As you progress through the game and unlock new vehicle components, you'll be able to get to new areas.

The level system in Nuts & Bolts is actually not too dissimilar to Mario 64's paintings. Each game world has several different entrances, and each entrance you take will carry you to a different "Act" of the game, containing new tasks. The worlds are once again populated by Banjo characters, but here they take on the roles of other characters - for example, in the rural-themed Nutty Acres, Mumbo plays an idiotic farmer, while rival shaman Humba Wumba plays his wife. When you enter a stage for the first time, a brief intro clip introduces the "cast" of that world, in the manner of an old-fashioned sitcom - a neat touch.

In each "Act" the characters are up to new activities, leading to different challenges for you to take part in. Depending on the task in hand, LOG may force you to use one of his pre-set vehicles, or allow you to use something you've built yourself; either way, the aim is to get as high a score or as fast a time as possible. Based upon your performance, you'll be given one of three grades - winning either a musical note, a Jiggie piece, or a Jiggie and a bonus trophy. The overall idea, then, is that you progress through challenges as you like - then when you've unlocked new vehicle parts, later in the game, you come back and try it again. Build a more suitable vehicle, and you'll get a better score - bringing you glory and opening the path to new tasks.