Hey guys. I've decided to make a series of threads under the umbrella "before bedtime" to leave you Americans with something to think about before we Australian's go to sleep.

Today its an excerpt from an interview with Kudo Tsunoda, General Manager of Microsoft Game Studios, from two days ago:

"If you've got any hands-on time with Banjo, it's a really awesome product.

The platforming genre has been so successful on previous generations of consoles, and you don't really see too many platforming games anymore. I think it's the kind of thing that the genre didn't really advance, creatively. Now you see what Rare's doing with Banjo, and that is what next-gen platform gaming is all about."

" Again, Banjo's a great example. The platforming genre has been stale for a long time, and now someone's doing something really cool and creative with it."

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18907

Starcraft's thoughts:

Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts will not be a traditional platformer I'm sure. As a Banjo fan myself from the N64 days, I can understand the frustration of a lot of people that wanted just a straight Banjo 1/2 repeat in high-definition.

But all we know so far is that this title is being made by the same team that made the originals, and Microsoft clearly has confidence in it, or they wouldn't be hyping it. The gaming press thats played previews generally liked it.

At the end of the day, the game is a platformer, but its making an effort to innovate. This innovation is risky, and it won't necessarily result in a good game. But trying to evolve the genre and allowing Banjo and Kazooie to collect parts to make vehicles which need to be customized to perform certain tasks has all the hallmarks of platforming.

Will it be what platform-players are used to? Probably not.

Is that a good thing? We'll see. Certainly its not automatically a bad thing.

Lets not close our minds off to the possibility that Rare, especially this old-school Rare team, can do something truly incredible. We Banjo fans wont get what we wanted, but we may get something better.

Goodnight from Australia.

Thank you for trying to help spread this

i didnt even know you were australian.

It is most definitely a platformer.

I'm Aussie to the core. And yes, I think its important the misconceptions surrounding this title are stopped. I understand a lot of people are disappointed it wont be traditional, but a lot of people that never played Banjo might enjoy Nuts and Bolts, and people shouldn't be put off by the false notion it is a racer.

Night everyone. I'll come back to the thread tomorrow.

platformer with vehicle elements. Im quite sure itll rock

Banjo Kazooie is as much as a platformer as Need for Speed: Most Wanted is a realistic racer.

I don't see how this is even a topic considering the videos that are out have not a single race in them. I guess Mario64 was racer and not a platformer since you had those races against the penguin.

Well, I hope reviewers will like the evolution and give this game +90% and we have another multi-million selling AAA title for the X360.

When is it going to be released btw? Do they have an exact date yet, or just an estimate?

And what time is it in Australia right now? 3 am? You are online, starcraft.

2.30am. Im meant to be in bed, but I'm doing assessments.

Its probably going to hit in November of October.