10 Terrible Video Games With Awesome Openings
8. Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Animal duo Banjo and Kazooie were practically mascots for the 3D platforming genre all by themselves but when developers Rare were bought out by Microsoft they went worryingly quiet Then, 2008’s Nuts & Bolts happened.
The opening cutscene would be sure to reduce BK fans to tears as they got their first look at Spiral Mountain in glorious HD. The game quickly recaps the story so far, complete with your expected level of Rare humour, and then takes fans to Banjo and Kazooie’s abode. In the eight years since their last appearance they’ve grown old and fat and from here on out the title breaks the fourth-wall nonstop.
It’s some truly funny stuff, poking jabs at Rare’s own failures and the changes in the gaming industry. When it tasks the player with collecting a tonne of Jiggies but then cuts them off, bemoaning that players don’t “want that kind of thing” though? The goodwill starts to fade.
The game repeatedly tells us the original Banjo games are tired and outdated and it’s answer to that is to apparently turn the series into open-world kart driving blandness.
If their appearance in Smash Brothers amounts to nothing more than a fun cameo, at least we’ll have the opening few minutes of Nuts & Bolts before Banjo-Kazooie died forever.