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XBox (Games) Entertainment Games

Rare Grabs Ghoulies For Microsoft, Gets Mixed Results 51

Posted by simoniker from the kick-in-the-vitals dept.
Thanks to 1UP for their review of Rare's first Xbox title, Grabbed By The Ghoulies, which has just shipped to stores following the company's acquisition by Microsoft last year. The reviewer is lukewarm at best on this swiftly-developed title, arguing it "...really is nothing but monster-punching and room-advancing", and lamenting that "...most of all, the game's short. Really short." While a recent hands-on preview at TotalVideoGames was much more positive, suggesting that "as far as we're concerned the criticism of 'Grabbed by the Ghoulies' has been a little harsh", IGN Xbox have now weighed in with a similarly ambivalent review, praising "some really great presentation", but ultimately suggesting "there aren't any landmark moments or climaxes to diversify the gameplay in any significant matter." So, which forthcoming Rare titles are you looking forward to?
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Rare Grabs Ghoulies For Microsoft, Gets Mixed Results More

Rare Grabs Ghoulies For Microsoft, Gets Mixed Results

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  • DO you guys get his name or not

    Do you need a translation for the ghoulies bit and it's use in UK slang?
    • I think a dozen or so people pointed it out last time the game was mentioned, and the time before that, and no one in the US really cared about the UK developers' particular use of slang to try to put a pun in the title when the literal title is fairly mundane for the story.

      That, or maybe I just don't get too excited about Beavis & Butthead style in-jokes. 'huhu he said Ghoulies' 'Yeah, he said he grabbed them too, heh'
      • Fair enough....

        They called me Finbar (after Finbar Saunders) at Uni for fairly obvious reasons given my sense of humour, so I couldn't resist ramming the message home
      • It goes a bit beyond using a naughty word. This game's title is some of the most inspired wordplay I've seen in a long while. The alternate meaning of "Ghoulies" isn't just a simple substitution, it completely changes the grammatical form of the sentence!
  • So, which forthcoming Rare titles are you looking forward to?

    CONKER, CONKER, CONKER! (info) [xbox.com]

  • collectionfest (Score:3, Interesting)

    by h0mer ( 181006 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:33AM (#7289708)
    I think Perfect Dark Zero will fit in the Xbox lineup perfectly. As for other titles, I hope they don't decide to put 500 blue things, 200 yellow things and 50 red things to find in each level. All that collecting nearly ruined some of their Nintendo 64 games, like the Banjo-Kazooie series, Jet Force Gemini, and of course Donkey Kong 64.

    Rare has made some great stuff, but I want to see them do more with a 3D environment than hide a bunch of fucking coins or gems or dildos.

    • IMO, Rare have made a total of two great titles: Jet Force Gemini, and Goldeneye.

      Since then, loads of their devteams have jumped ship, and they are continuing to make great titles, ie Timesplitters 2 to name but one.

      I've never understood why Rare had such a following. The Donkey Kong games in particular grate on my nerves.

      -- Soluzar
    • Rare has made some great stuff, but I want to see them do more with a 3D environment than hide a bunch of fucking coins or gems or dildos.

      No, that will be Techmo with its sequel to DOA: Extreme Beach Volleyball. They'll up the ante from buying your girls just swimsuits...


      Mechanik

  • Classic Ultimate game? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BenjyD ( 316700 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @08:52AM (#7289850)
    The game really sounds more like something from the 'Good old days' of Ulimate Play the Game (now Rare) - trapped in a small area, lots of bad guys to fight, using specific moves/equipment/order to kill the monsters. Like JetPac or Psst! (damn that game was hard).

  • Rarely Compelling (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Kamalot ( 674654 )
    Can someone explain to me Rare's appeal? Yes, they made a good first-person shooter (FPS) for the N64. We all know that no matter how good a console FPS is, they pale in comparison to FPS on PCs. While Starfox Adventures (Nintendo GameCube) is one of the most fantastic looking games, the gameplay is uninspired and the story is dull. The game has no soul. Color me jade, Rare does not impress me.

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • We all (apparently) know that console FPS games pale in comparison to PC FPS games?

      News to me!! I know nothing of the sort. I play games regularly on my PC, but not FPS! Not since the dark ages! I can't get into any of the stodgy, dodgy FPS titles that come out on the PC these days.

      Halo and 'Splitters 2, OTOH are a different class, in my mind. Have you played either of the above?

      I do agree with you that Rare are largely rubbish, I've recently posted to that effect myself, and Starfox Adventures takes

    • Re:Rarely Compelling (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NexusTw1n ( 580394 )
      I suspect Rare's appeal comes from journalists and gamers old enough to have been playing games in the 1980's.

      Ultimate Play the Game were the best software house during the 8 bit home computer days. At least as far as the UK is concerned. This perhaps would be less true in the states where the NES took the place of the Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad.

      From Pssst! to Jet Pac to Knight Lore and Underwurlde every single game was an addictive well made classic.

      They were legends and their refusal to do PR int
    • FPS

      I own Time Splitters 2. It has decent control and is very fun. The storytelling is terrible and makes little to no sense. The mission objectives are sometimes very unclear, especially on the stealth levels.

      Halo has a better story than Time Splitters 2 and does an excellent job of making the world feel like a "real" (as real as an alien ring in space can be) place. Yet the levels in Halo are so monotonous and dull. It has a few moments of brilliance in the action separated by gulfs of boredom. Halo'
    • The Donkey Kong Country was really good. DKC 2 was good. DKC 3 was blah. DK 64 just had too much in it.

      Killer Instinct was a pretty decent fighter.

      Obviously Goldeneye and Perfect Dark were huge hits.

      Conker was a great game, but it was last major N64 game released, so not many people payed attention to it.

      But they've had a lot of bombs. Banjo Kazooie was kinda painful (one death and you have to collect all 100 notes in the level again). Banjo Tooie fixed the problems in the first game, but then ended up
    • "Can someone explain to me Rare's appeal?"

      Don't you remember Donkey Kong Country?

      The reason that Rare has such a following is that they consistently surprise people with what the hardware can do. Though I agree with your opinion of Star Fox Adventures, that game was still very impressive graphically. It was so startling to see fur and grass in the scene.

      Rare is a team of very creative and talented people. They have the same sort of appeal that Pixar does in some respects. "Man, what are they going t
  • Ohhh.. rare with a capital 'R' .. silly me :-P

  • Bluntly (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kyouryuu ( 685884 ) on Thursday October 23, 2003 @10:14AM (#7290794) Homepage
    To put it bluntly, I don't feel Rare has made anything worthwhile since Goldeneye. Perfect Dark was plagued by a choppy framerate that only marginally improved with the N64 memory expansion. Banjo-Kazooie, Jet Force Gemini, and Donkey Kong 64 were all mediocre easter egg hunts under the disguise of pretty graphics. Starfox Adventures is a dull adventure game with Zelda elements seemingly thrown in at the last moment. Maybe Ghoulies is changed - I don't know.

    What Rare really needs to do is find some way of reinspiring and reinvigorating its games, especially in the way of gameplay. They are just tired models of gameplay - Rare should try their hand at something bold and new instead of the neverending item hunt. They have talented artists, designers, and programmers. It's making a compelling game with fun mechanics where I feel Rare continues to fall short. All of the graceful programming and pretty graphics can't save a game with a lackluster basis to begin with. And while there are some people who really enjoy item collection games, Rare slit its own throat by producing one after another after another on the Nintendo 64.

    • Thing is, I really *liked* Jet Force Gemini. I thought it was a fun and original game... Until you get to what should have been the end. Instead, you're treated to another trip through every level to find the tribals you missed. It's about a 7-hour game that they extended to 15 hours by forcing you to hunt down each and every one of those damn things.

      I wholeheartedly agree with your assesment of their recent boring games. I don't know what was going on with Rare during the N64 years, but they kept pu
  • They're the English equivalent of Naughty Dog. Brilliant coding abilities, but so-so design skills. Rare has certainly had its moments in recent years (Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie, Conker) and will eventually make more great games no doubt. But they've proven they think multiple characters and endless fetching/collecting chores make a great game. I quit playing Donkey Kong 64 because it got tedious playing the exact same (difficult to navigate) level five times over. Ditto for Banjo Tooie, which utterly
  • I've said many times letting Rare go was one of the biggest mistake the big N could have ever made. Something about Rare seemed to just go with Nintendo. I'm sure Conker Live and Uncut will be fun on the XBox, but it just wont be right. Like the fact I can turn on my gameboy right now and play Sonic the Hedge Hog not right. At least it seemed not right at first.

    Now that I've played some Sega Games on the Gameboy and the Gamecube Sega may pick up some of the slack left over from Rare. Rare was kick-ass
    • Conkers is SO bad. Slow, unfunny, horrible graphics, terrible mechanics. It's incessant pop-culture references will date the game faster than pong. It failed as a 3d platform game. Rare's never put out anything very interesting frankly.
  • Come on Rare was just bought by MS. That means that all new and sequel games from Rare will be beta verisons for the third game.
    Gosh, what did you expect?
  • Donkey Kong Forever.
  • Conker should be fun, but I want Perfect Dark Zero, the first was a great game that was hampered by the N64's limitations. Heck a re-release of the first one with updated graphics would be nice.

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