Unlike previous Banjo-Kazooie games, Nuts and Bolts is not a platformer. Or rather, it’s not just a platformer. Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts is vehicle creation game. The game presents itself through a series of short missions. Most of these missions can only be completed with the aid of vehicles.
Luckily for me and my lack of construction skills, the game lets you start from a basic blueprint of the most simple vehicles: boats, helicopters, and carts. The more talented vehicle constructors may want to start from scratch, but I found it helpful to start from something that at least resembles something to sit in. Adding fitting modifications to pre-fabricated machinery also sped up the game.
For one mission, I had to pick up a bunch of lost employees ala Crazy Taxi. I started off with a main tray body, added some wheels, a driver’s seat, and two passenger seats. The first time I built this, I forgot to attach the passenger seats to the actual cart, so the seats just rolled around helplessly. Don’t forget to make sure all your vehicle’s parts are connected to each other!
For another mission, I had to defend a particular landmark from enemies. I wanted both a ranged weapon as well as a melee weapon, so I built this cart which has an egg-gun and a fist in front to ram into bad guys. I think the body was a bit too long because it was pretty hard to steer into tight spaces.
This huge guy is a pusher vehicle that I used for a pretty painful mission. I had to push a giant ice sculpture to a designated area, which was not easy to do. The pusher vehicle, as it probably looks, is clumsy, which means I pushed the ice sculpture off a couple of cliffs before finally succeeding.
What I like about Nuts and Bolts is that while its focus is on driving silly vehicles around, it still retains its platformer roots. Showdown Town, the hub town of the game, requires some basic platformer skills to get to more advanced areas. I usually get bored with platformers, so the driving parts provides enough change for me to stay interested in the game.
Images courtesy of Microsoft. Photos Siliconera/Louise.
