Banjo-Kazooie Done Sharpish
If time is such a great teacher, why is it that we’re still getting nipped by Snippets and splatted by Slappas after all these years? We obviously haven’t practised at Banjo-Kazooie as much as Chris van Halbeek, a Dutch gamer who just completed a ‘speed run’ through the entire game in under three hours, all in the name of charity.
Speed running is the art of finishing a game as quickly as possible in a single session, and while Chris couldn’t quite top the record of 2:40:05 (set on the N64 version by Daniel ‘Gibbatizer’ Gibb in 2009) it was still a terrific effort for an excellent cause. We caught up with the man to discuss the perils of speed running and what inspired him to take up this frantic challenge.
Rare: First up, please could you tell us a little about the Awesome Games Done Quick event and its drive to help charity?
Chris van Halbeek: Awesome Games Done Quick was a project created by the speed run site speeddemosarchive.com. We have an annual marathon to raise money for charity and the Prevent Cancer Foundation was our choice this year. We ended up raising over $50,000 for them which is amazing. It’s a real good charity because everybody knows someone who has had cancer or is struggling with it.
Rare: How did you get involved with doing speed runs?
Chris van Halbeek: I got involved with speed running after SDA’s previous marathon. After watching that, I just knew this was what I had to do. I don’t have any actual runs up on SDA but I hope that will soon change.
Jan 2011
Rocket Man
What better footnote to the end of Rare’s 25th anniversary year than a look back at where it all started – with Ultimate Play the Game’s Jetpac. In 2007 we re-released the classic shooter in a new Refuelled version for Xbox LIVE Arcade, but also paid homage to the ZX Spectrum original by including it in the package.
Still a fantastic and challenging game after all this time, the re-release also captured many people’s imaginations with the inclusion of global leaderboards. While most retro games have their high scores, there was never an official record set for the original Jetpac (at least not beyond a five-minute time limit), so this was a chance for the most dedicated players to shine.
At the top of that list stands Mike Kelehan, a veteran gamer from Maryland, USA with an incredible score of 4,979,525. We caught up with him to find out what it takes to be the greatest Jetman in the world.
Rare: Was the XBLA release of Jetpac your first experience with it, or did you play it when the original version came out? What are your earliest memories of it?
Mike Kelehan: I never played the original version of Jetpac on the Spectrum. I was born in 1981, so I’d have been 1 or 2 when it came out, not to mention that America didn’t have a ton of Spectrums. The first time I played it was actually in Donkey Kong 64, back in high school, and I remember really enjoying it.
Jetpac is a tough game, probably even more so than the Refuelled version – what attracted you to get the highest score in Retro mode?
I think the pure, arcade-style nature of the game attracted me to it. You can always account for your goal, and you can always account for what will end your game. If you die, it’s your fault. Playing more will only make you better at it. Developing skill in a game like that, to me, is a ton of fun.
What is the hardest part of Retro Jetpac? Is it a certain type of enemy or a particular stage?
The hardest part of Retro, originally, was the UFO enemies. Since they follow you around, you need to think quickly to get out of their way and finish the level. Eventually, I figured out a strategy for trapping them all in one spot, which made it significantly easier because they stacked on top of one another to effectively function as one unit, which could be easily avoided. I actually found a Google video that I uploaded with that strategy, three years ago:
Dec 2010
