Rare Shows Off Portable Mr. Pants

Thanks to IGN Pocket for its article revealing more details on Rare's Game Boy Advance puzzle title It's Mr. Pants, a THQ-published game from the now Microsoft-owned UK developer which is "the revival of... a Donkey Kong-branded puzzle game titled DK Coconut Crackers." The title, "a traditional puzzle game in the Tetris sense", includes "crazy, tripped out imagery and music, complete with Mr. Pants singing between levels" - there's more information on 'The History Of Pants' over at fansite Rare-Extreme.

Not much to say...

[dmayle]

I'm not so impressed with Rare any more. I'm sure they must have lost whatever talent they have, because they haven't had a good game since the N64 days. Granted, I think Conker's Bad Fur day had one of the best stories I've ever seen in a video game. (Showing that dealing with human follies, and depth of emotion can provide immense depth to what was otherwise a dick and fart joke platformer.) I'd like to know what happened to the studio that came out with the Banjo and Kazooie series, and Goldeneye...

Re:Not much to say...

[KAMiKAZOW]

They left Rare.
Most talented ex-Rare people now word at Free Radical Design [frd.co.uk]. They are likely the best known developer of ex-Rare people. They released the ego shooters Time Splitters (PS2) and Time Splitters 2 (PS2, CG, XB). Now they are working on Time Slitters 3 and an action adventure called Second Sight (both games are for PS2, CG, & XB).

There's also a small team called Zoonami [zoonami.com]. They have two games in development. One is a music game called Funkydilla (PS2, CG, XB). The other one had the codename Game Zero in the past. Almost nothing is known about it.

Another ex-Rare team is Third Wave Games [3dgamers.com]. They are developing a PC game called War World [warworld.net].

Another coloratura performance, and another, and .

[orthogonal]

includes "crazy, tripped out imagery and music, complete with Mr. Pants singing between levels"

Yeah, that's not going to get old fast.

"Mr. Pants, that's the name -- the name again is Mr. Pants!")

I thought that

[foidulus]

Donkey Kong was Nintendo's IP. Since MS bought Rare, is Nintendo still allowing them to use Donkey Kong IP for gba games?

Re:I thought that

[eyeye]

Why else would they come up with "Mr pants" ;-)

Re:I thought that

[Aerion]

Why else would they come up with "Mr pants" ;-)

They came up with Mr. Pants long ago, when they were still working with Nintendo. I think a Mr. Pants cameo is hidden somewhere in Perfect Dark, and I know for sure that he appears in Banjo-Tooie. Mr. Pants is a long-running gag at Rare and not really a serious attempt at anything.

Re:I thought that

[Bulln-Bulln]

First: MS did not buy Rare. They bought only 49% (IIRC) of Rare.
Second: Rare did not use Donkey Kong. They replaced all Nintendo IP with Mr. Pants and other own stuff of Rare.

Re:I thought that

[Anonymous Coward]

First: MS did not buy Rare. They bought only 49% (IIRC) of Rare.

MS did actually buy RARE, as it reads on the developer's official site: Microsoft Acquires Video Game Powerhouse Rare Ltd. [rareware.com]

The 49% thing was the deal they had with Nintendo, back in the days.

Is it influence by Microsoft

[News for nerds]

to bring an "adult-oriented" title to GBA? Joke aside, you will be arrested as soon as you are found to play this Mr Pants game in public, in Islam countries. Not sure why Nintendo approved it.

UK based..

[Turn-X Alphonse]

erm so it's UK based... in which case "pants" means either "underwear" (tighty whiteys) or "Crap" (Man that's pants!).

Rare were good at 3D technology on the N64, nothing compared to the N64 as a 3D platformer machine.... now rare can't do that because it's repeatedly been done, which leaves them with nothing...

I wish they'd stop pissing around and make a 4th Donkey kong country for the cube/xbox/whatever. Use the same graphics style as the original, include Diddy, Donkey and Dixie. Just make it have thousands of levels. Loads of secrets (unlock other characters, but make you pick which two you want, don't force them on us).

Ta dar,instant hint, will sell millions just from the originals fanbase.

Re:UK based..

[jkeyes]

Yes and get sued into obvilion for violating Nintendo's Trademarks and copyrights!

Re:UK based..

[Doomstalk]

I wish they'd stop pissing around and make a 4th Donkey kong country for the cube/xbox/whatever. Donkey Kong is Nintendo's intellectual property, and Rare is owned by Microsoft now. I highly doubt that Nintendo is going to let them put Donkey Kong on the Xbox, and there's no way Microsoft is going to let them develop anything for the Gamecube. The only reason they're allowed to develop for the GBA is because it's not directly in competition with the Xbox.