Mini-Scribes: June 29, 2012
And what it all comes down to
Is that everything’s gonna be fine, fine, fine
‘Cos I’ve got one hand in my pocket, and the other one is answering Mini-Scribes…
Q: Dear Rare,
I’m a big fan of your company and still support it no matter how it has changed lately as a whole. I know it seems silly to request a game (in this case a port), but I do hope I can get some sort of message that tells me if it’s even possible to see this game come back.
“Battletoads, also known as Super Battletoads is a 1994 arcade game developed by Rare and published by Electronic Arts.”
I was thinking that since your partnership with Microsoft (which was quite a long time ago now that I think about it), it may be possible for this game to see the light of day in some way, shape, or form. Whether it be XBLA or Game Room, I (and many others alike) just want to be able to play this game once more… I know with how many e-mails you get you may not even see this message, but I just hope I can get some sort of answer of whether I should just give up on this or maybe even seek out an arcade cab at this point?
Vinny Di Lallo
A: That might be your best option, Lalloskates. It’s possible that arcade Battletoads could resurface, but first we’d have to embark upon another XBLA project, then decide it should be a port of a previous release rather than something new, then whittle the contenders down to the Battletoads series, then pick out the arcade version in particular. Then see if we could untangle whatever rights issues may be knotted around it. Then go looking for the original code and assets, because the availability of that stuff plays a major part in these decisions, and who can say what’s left of Super Battletoads nowadays?
On the bright side, it’s probably more feasible than Grabbed by the Ghoulies DLC. Don’t tell Gregg I said that.
Q: Dear Rare,
I was playing your stupid game on my BIRTHDAY, okay, well an hour and half before midnight of the morning of my BIRTHDAY when I got killed by a stupid Russian shooting a box, which clearly had no explosives in it. Upon the box being shot, on my BIRTHDAY, the box exploded. Because of this inconvenience, one of the most distinguished international spies in cold war history was brought prematurely to his death, on my BIRTHDAY. I mean, come on, you’re telling me that this is the pinnacle of gaming technology? This is, doubtlessly, the worst birthday ever.
Sincerely,
My BIRTHDAY
A: Games only exist as receptacles for exploding boxes and barrels. Fact. Every game ever made contains at least one, from Pong to Kinect Sports. What? Sometimes they’re easy to miss. If you can’t come to terms with this harsh truth, I fear there’s little we can do to make your BIRTHDAY any more satisfactory. Top tip: check your cake’s not box-shaped before lighting the candles.
Jun 2012
Kinect Sports: Season Two June Records
Yessir. Time to see how your performances have improved since we posted the first set of Season Two records back in March. And it’s looking good, with quite a few scores sharpened up! For this edition we’ve also added activities from Challenge Pack #2 and the Basketball Challenge Pack, giving you even more big numbers to lock into your sights.
Just like the earlier records, most of these scores and times were logged during online play as the servers can’t generally track offline results. In the cases of any impossible-looking results or gaps in the data, we conferred with the sports’ designers and testers to either fine-tune the figures to something more plausible or substitute some of our testers’ top accomplishments.
If you’ve got proof (e.g. video, photo, uploaded to Facebook) that you’ve crushed one of these scores or times, send it our way and we’ll see how it stacks up!
Jun 2012
May Social Memento
Good old May, inspirational last full month of spring. That’s why there are so many characters, songs and cultural items named after it, like Nuts in May, Maggie May, Peter Parker’s Aunt May, Brian May and Devil May Cry. Is that good enough for an intro? No? It’s all you’re getting.
So what was heating up the Rare sociosphere throughout May 2012? Now you’re asking. Besides the All Access Pass, Develop award nod, PALA participation and Game My Summer promotion with its Candy Sports game and laser-bright custom consoles, Kinect Sports: Season Two also filled up our latest subscriber newsletter with that indefatigable DLC catalogue, while YouTube highlights included 20 minutes of Brazilian Quick Play mascot grudge match action and the winning, if slightly unsettling, tactics of Coach Ted. The original Kinect Sports also resurfaced not only in the Xbox 360 Celebration Pack but in spirit on Britain’s Got Talent, apparently.
The ’90s came bouncing back in many disparate ways: a soothing DKC remix as a backdrop to Marty from 1UP’s efforts to convince his colleagues that DKC was better than SMB; GoldenEye-era Bond showing up in a multi-game instakill re-enactment as seen on Game Informer; Spike from Blast Corps making an unlikely VO ‘comeback’; a Banjo-Kazooie fan blog stuffed with arty tributes; and a cuss-fest Jimquisition piece on Viva Piñata being the best-looking game of a generation. Alright, that’s not from the ’90s. It fits better in this paragraph though.
List features came in thick and fast from Rare Gamer and the newly rebranded RFDB, with Top 5 Terrors of the Deep, Oddball Sports, Doomed Cruises, Stubborn and Pushover Bosses, Rare DJs and Pointless Collectibles alongside timely Top 7 lists of Rare Mothers, Veterans and Villains (challenged by Twitter-based Ultimate loyalists, who probably appreciated this dusty bit of fanart more than most). Other subjects touched upon, collided with and tripped over: Fable Heroes! Tweet milestones! Haiku reviews! Blooding knuckles! Loud honeycombs! Social media gold.
And finally, the irregular Community poll results: according to our vertical slice of the collective internets, the Season Two sport with the finest set of activities (pre-Challenge Pack #2) is Golf, after a late surge put it way ahead of Tennis with 33% of the vote compared to Tennis’ 26%. Coming in behind were Baseball, Darts, American Football and Skiing. People obviously enjoy a bit of Ocean Driver – even after we took the mascots off the targets so you couldn’t drown them. Get behind your favourite add-on pack in the new poll!
Goodbye, then, to May with its thoughtful double bill of British bank holidays, at least when there’s not a Jubilee on. To see the events of June occur in real-time like Jack Bauer’s life but with less terrorism and stabbing, stalk us on Twitter or Facebook (at Rare or Kinect Sports). 58… 59… 00.
Jun 2012
