Tag Archives: Banjo Kazooie

Grant Kirkhope Explains Mumbo Jumbo’s “Oominaka” Line (It Involves His Swollen Balls)

Yes, you read that right. Balls. Let’s talk about Grant Kirkhope’s balls today. Sorry if this is really late for some, but I just saw this episode some days ago. So then, in a recent episode of Game Grumps — a collab between JonTron and Egoraptor — they had former Rare composer Grant Kirkhope on as a guest as they played a selection of N64 games he worked on. Along with composing music, Kirkhope also did the sound design for some of these games, including some voice work as well.

Many know Mumbo Jumbo from Banjo-Kazooie. With Mumbo Jumbo, much of his spoken lines were generated randomly on a syllable by syllable basis, picking from a pool of samples for him. “Ikambokem” was one such line that was formed from this randomization. Some were also full, used for specific actions performed by Mumbo. “Oominaka” is Continue reading →

Hurst And Kirkhope, Among Others, Want To Make A Real Banjo-Tooie Successor

Leave a reply

Once again, Rare is in the spotlight over something fans are just clamoring for since the lukewarm release of Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts. A small group of former Rare developers (who run game developer Crash Labs), including Steven Hurst and Grant Kirkhope, want to make a new Banjo-Kazooie game, or at least somewhat. The Twitter account MingyJongo was started to gain support for the idea from fans. In the profile, it states that they want to create a “spiritual successor” to Banjo-Tooie, the second game in the series. So this may or many not be an actual Banjo game, but play very similar to one. Maybe it could be a Sabreman game? Who knows. One Twitter user asked why these guys don’t use Kickstarter instead to bring the project to life, to which Mingy replies “You’re spending other peoples money & what happens when you need more time/money? We’ll worry about funding when we know exactly what IT is.” A good point. The other question would be that IF they do make a Banjo game, is Microsoft going to keep it or let it go? Maybe those rumors a while back might mean something…

For now they only need support on Twitter. So if you want to see something happen with this idea, go there and hound them!

Ex-Rare Developers Join Forces To Create A Spiritual Successor To Banjo-Tooie [Nintendolife]

MingyJongo Twitter account

Rumor: Nintendo Negotiating With Microsoft On Rare Properties (And Maybe Even Rare Itself)

3 Replies

Before Retro Studios became Nintendo’s new Rare, Rareware was the talk of the town during the old days of Nintendo. They developed hits like the Donkey Kong Country trilogy on the SNES and a plethora of games on the N64, including Banjo Kazooie, Goldeneye 007, Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Jet Force Gemini, and others. Microsoft bought Rare near the start of the new millennium, with Nintendo selling off the rest of their shares to Microsoft. Today Rare makes Kinect games and are the developers of the Xbox Live Avatars.

According to an anonymous tipster on ZeldaInformer, Nintendo is in talks with Microsoft to buy back the Banjo-Kazooie IP. The article does state that there could be the possibility that Nintendo might want all of Rare back with them to keep Banjo-Kazooie, but also obtain all of Rare’s other properties. There’s of course lots of hopeful words, some that sound way too good to be true. If Nintendo wanted Rare back, who’s to say Microsoft might keep some of Rare’s properties (like Nintendo did with their own)?. And who’s to say Nintendo could obtain many assets from Rare, but Microsoft keeps the Rare name? Lots of questions, barely any answers. But do take this news as it is: a rumor. One Big. Ass. Rumor.

Rumor: Nintendo Attempting to Negotiate its Way Into Ownership of Banjo and Kazooie [ZeldaInformer, via NUReviews]

I Stand On My Soapbox: What Nintendo Kept After Rare Left

13 Replies

I Stand On My Soapbox is a series of editorials that cover more specific topics in the games industry and community. These articles are a little more extreme than normal editorials published here, and could just degenerate to outright ranting. Have fun and enjoy the show!

Time to stand on this box again, I got another rant coming up. If you’ve been living under rock for the past life time, don’t worry you still have another life time ahead of you. But many-a-gamer remembers the rather public exchange of hands between Nintendo, Microsoft, and the company Rare. Rare started off as third party, became a second party company under Nintendo during the 90s, and then in 2002 became a first party company for Microsoft. Today they make Avatars for the Xbox 360 and Kinect Games. Back on Nintendo’s side, the company recently had Retro Studios revive Donkey Kong Country, a game originally made by Rare. However the game, Donkey Kong Country Returns, would be done without the Kremlings. Despite Retro stating that the omission of the Kremlings was simply a matter of choice, gamers went ahead and assumed otherwise.

Continue reading →