Banjo Pilot Review

Rareware. They make Goldeneye. They make Perfect Dark. They make Starfox Adventures. And now they make this...

They climb their way to the top of the reputation metre, then they knock themselves down by producing crap like this.

Firstly, like the other games in the seemingly endless stream of games trying knock Mario Kart of it's royal gaming thrown, it doesn't look the part. Sure, it's got nice backgrounds bursting with colour. But what does that matter when the characters look like bits of chewed up plastic. The sprites are lumpy, blocky and badly animated.

Secondly, the music is REPULSIVE. It sounds like the studio they made it was a circus tent. The sound effects are extremely annoying and dorky. The limited voice overs are okay, but very chirpy at the same time.

But all that wouldn't matter if there was any playability in the game. There are invisble walls everywhere, bouncing you back and slowing you down. But the most annoying thing is that YOU CAN'T EVEN SKIP THE SMALLEST CORNER. It's ridiculous, lazy and incredibly embasrrassing. To add injury to insult, they've gone and made it so that mud ON THE GROUND, slows down planes IN THE AIR. What is being accomplished by that? Nothing.

Planes just don't work when trying to mimic karting games, this was a big mistake and should not have been made.

Graphics 64% 'Clunky, Colourful and Chirpy'
The backgrounds are bright and colourful but sadly the horrendous character sprites ruin this.

Sound/Music 43% '1000% Lame'
The music sounds like it's been made by a clown and been recorded on a broken record player. The sound effects are trashy.

Gameplay 51% 'Unplayable'
There's hardly any gameplay to it. You can only play it if your used to rubbish games and have tolerance for invisible walls.

Value 66% 'Not worth buying'
There are some good tournaments, a Bottles mode that I can't be bothered to mention and a decent selection of characters. But why would Kazooie need a plane? That's just stupid, whatever.

Overall Score: 56%

This review was added on 23rd January 2005 by nGaming user ProReviewer.