Rare Replay

The great thing about the Rare Replay collection is the amount of high end content to play, there’s something for everyone.

The older gamers can relish in the grander days of 8bit with games such as Jetpac Lunar & Knightlore. These titles were designed with a great deal of thought and creativity, leading to a push in mechanical limitations to develop new forms of game-play and interactions. Certain other titles did little to break away from the cliché designs at the time with games such as Sabre Wulf, Underwulrd and Atic Atac doing little to integrate new ideals and mechanics. Other than to offer unbelievably difficult games mostly due to their limited designs and ill coded mechanics. Luckily we were blessed with Cobra Triangle, which did a great job at bringing a range of diverse mission types and game-play features and brought them together in a fun game. Digger T-Rock also incorporated news concepts to the already tired formula of the adventure genre.

The 90’s thankfully continued this trend and Rare delivered some of their best work with the advancement of technology. Perfect Dark and Battletoads were among the best games from this era, due to the brilliant designs that incorporated innovative game-play, pleasing aesthetics and dynamic elements that advanced the genres. Other titles such as Banjo Kazooie, the ludicrously crude yet brilliant Conkers Bad Fur Day and the ever so campy Jetforce Gemini are also a treat to play. Some titles do lack the ability to freely move the camera, meaning you’ll get a little annoyed at the forced and at times obscure angles of view. Jetforce Gemini and Conker are the main culprits here and oddly enough, you could move the camera in Banjo which came out two years previously. However, the revamped visuals and high frame rates help to overcome these minor issues and bring new life into these fantastic titles.

The 00’s showed a slower progression for new ideas and were indeed some tough times for Rare. Still they did their best to deliver high end concepts and in fact tried to renovate old ones. Grabbed by the Ghoulies offered a campy horror movie adventure with interesting combat elements and health meters affected by the level of fear experienced. It's a shame it did so poorly in sales but now is your chance to play a rather entertainingly horror gem.

Perfect Dark Zero doesn't live up to the original with its lame narrative and shoddy level design but does have an awesome soundtrack, pretty visuals and some dynamic elements with how it structured mission objectives based on difficulty. It's a shame Perfect Dark Zero does have some frame rate issues with the transition over to Xbox One. As for other games during this time period, Viva Pinata is one of the best games Rare ever made with an excellent and highly innovated design for the life simulation genre of gaming. Shame it’s needless sequel didn't add very much to the formula but both games are highly detailed, offering thoughtful and engaging simulation style game-play.

Kameo was the stepping stone for the Xbox 360 and even ten years on, it still looks good. There is a great deal of diverse game-play styles for players to enjoy. Having the ability to change into four different beasts with particular elemental powers, allows players to overcome certain topographies, enemies and solve puzzles which would require a skill from one of the beasts. Kameo (like Digger T-Rock) did well to bring new life into the adventure genre. Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, revives the series with new mechanics and game-play elements, from driving and designing vehicles that again helped overcome certain challenges the game presented. This greatly expanded the game as a whole and helped develop adventure gaming to new levels, which sadly didn't work well for some.

Overall this is an impressive package from Rare and highly recommended for many the awesome games both retro and modern. Perfect Dark, Battletoads, Banjo, Viva Pinata and Conker make the list for the best titles with only a couple of retro hits that have shown their age a little too much with only a few minor flaws in some transitions but overall strongly developed for the next gen console.

Rare have pleased so many over the last three decades and this is a great salute to what they have achieved and what we loved about them so much.