IGN: ex rare member talks about cancelled games

[Skel]

Nintendo gave them an open ear, but are very restrictive on their devs. They will take your idea and make changes and say "do it this way". Nintendo is controlling but by comparison Microsoft is much worse. They won't even give an idea the time of day.

I bet they didn't know Microsoft was going to be this way when they signed on.

You seem to have this idea that Rare should have been able to do whatever they wanted with MS footing the bill. The reality is, as I had pointed out that Rare has gone on to create some innovative stuff, and Kinect Sports (both versions) sold well. This dev is pissed that he wasn’t able to work on stuff that interested him, I get that. It’s a good complaint that I respect. I also respect that he went off to find other work that might interest him. Him speaking of what could or could not be profitable is where things start to stretch into fantasyland. The article doesn’t say how low down the food chain this person was, but it sounds like he’s well on the lower ground. Which normally means he doesn’t get to see all the costs that go into making a new title, or is responsible if the title fails. Sounds like.. I don’t know who he was, and the article never says. To say that MS just passed on it because their dicks, and refuse to give an idea the time of day” is pure Fan Fiction. Unless you’re part of that group saying what gets made, and signs off on those silly budget things you’re full of crap.

You might be able to see that if you weren’t going “Roar, Microsoft sucks” so loud.

 

[Veliko]

Nintendo gave them an open ear, but are very restrictive on their devs. They will take your idea and make changes and say "do it this way". Nintendo is controlling but by comparison Microsoft is much worse. They won't even give an idea the time of day.

I bet they didn't know Microsoft was going to be this way when they signed on.

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this, or what your point is.

Nintendo are bad, Microsoft are the devil, but Rare are bee's knees because one developer wanted to make KI3...?

 

[FeathersMcGraw]

Oh, Rare, how I wish you could return to your N64 glory days. Kameo was a great game (although the trigger-centric control scheme was a bit unorthodox). I'd love to see them return to imaginative character and world design platformers.

 

[exdeath]

A straight arcade version for both KI1/2 as a download on XBox live would print money.

To date there has not been a proper home version of any Killer Instinct.

SNES version SUCKED balls, and the N64 in theory should have been perfect but mask ROM size limitations killed it.

I also remember being completely absorbed by Banjo Kazooie. I played a perfect game until the end; all puzzle pieces, honeycombs stars whatever they were. Most of the game I played with sound off because the kindergarten sound effects were starting to get on my nerves... so when I got to the quiz at the end where you have to name a song or special effect sound I was screwed.

 

[Doppel]

Truth is consoles are much better than they used to be. Heard on NPR recently how the high-end gaming market is doing fine, but it's the low-end one that's suffering. Back in the day between A-titles we'd fill our time playing crap. Now you've got so many A-titles you don't need to, so if your game isn't top shelf it fizzles.

Games now are costing tens of millions of dollars, and it's not all graphics, it is also writing, voices, audio, physics.

I see people on game forums sometimes lament new games how they suck and graphics aren't important to them. They must realize they are a tiny irrelevant minority. The rest of us want glitz. I would never play a game on the SNES again, no matter what. $100 M could go into the title and it would still be blocky pixelated sh*t to me.

This article, brief as it is, is spoken from the perspective of a single developer peon who probably had no insight into the finances behind things and felt his pet project was as valuable as one that would sell more copies, which it probably wasn't. Microsoft is probably right to target Kinect to kids. The one time I used it it was worthless and inaccurate, not really a tool for real games. I hope it gets better over time, and granted that was just a stupid sports demo at the store, but it took away any and all desire I had for the thing.

 

[purbeast0]

A straight arcade version for both KI1/2 as a download on XBox live would print money.

To date there has not been a proper home version of any Killer Instinct.

SNES version SUCKED balls, and the N64 in theory should have been perfect but mask ROM size limitations killed it.

that my friend, is why i bought a ki2 cabinet, and i have ki1 and ki2 pcb/hdd for them!

ki gold was also not a direct port of ki2, it had little things missing. the biggest one i remember is jago's ghost move was removed from it.

but to be honest, ki1 and ki2 have not aged well at all, and while they were awesome back in the day, i'm pretty sure in today's fighting game market, those games would not be popular at all compared to other games out there.

would i buy a ki3? damn right, i'd preorder it the day it was announced!

 

[Aikouka]

What was wrong with the first Killer Instinct? Note that I never played it in the arcade.

 

[exdeath]

Its just a very clunky jerky game that shows its age.

Its still awesome though. Available for your home in 1995 only on Nintendo ULTRA 64!

 

[exdeath]

Truth is consoles are much better than they used to be. Heard on NPR recently how the high-end gaming market is doing fine, but it's the low-end one that's suffering. Back in the day between A-titles we'd fill our time playing crap. Now you've got so many A-titles you don't need to, so if your game isn't top shelf it fizzles.

Games now are costing tens of millions of dollars, and it's not all graphics, it is also writing, voices, audio, physics.

I see people on game forums sometimes lament new games how they suck and graphics aren't important to them. They must realize they are a tiny irrelevant minority. The rest of us want glitz. I would never play a game on the SNES again, no matter what. $100 M could go into the title and it would still be blocky pixelated sh*t to me.

This article, brief as it is, is spoken from the perspective of a single developer peon who probably had no insight into the finances behind things and felt his pet project was as valuable as one that would sell more copies, which it probably wasn't. Microsoft is probably right to target Kinect to kids. The one time I used it it was worthless and inaccurate, not really a tool for real games. I hope it gets better over time, and granted that was just a stupid sports demo at the store, but it took away any and all desire I had for the thing.

Likewise I can't play games where the entirety of the story is "shoot enemies" or "shoot the other team", no matter how shiny and realistic the explosions are.

 

[purbeast0]

Its just a very clunky jerky game that shows its age.

Its still awesome though. Available for your home in 1995 only on Nintendo ULTRA 64!

yea and the combo system is pretty basic. but it's a cool paper rock scissor game as well to break them.

 

[jiffylube1024]

It's pretty dumb of Microsoft to buy RARE and then not let them do what they are good at and instead make them develop shitty Kinect games.

That would be like Nintendo EAD saying eff it, forget Mario, Metroid and Zelda let's just develop MMORPG's!

 

[Veliko]

It's pretty dumb of Microsoft to buy RARE and then not let them do what they are good at and instead make them develop shitty Kinect games.

That would be like Nintendo EAD saying eff it, forget Mario, Metroid and Zelda let's just develop MMORPG's!

Exactly what is it that you think RARE are good at, and in what way has MS stopped them doing those things?

Don't get me wrong, I loved RARE's stuff on the N64, but I'm not sure what you mean here.

 

[LumbergTech]

You seem to have this idea that Rare should have been able to do whatever they wanted with MS footing the bill. The reality is, as I had pointed out that Rare has gone on to create some innovative stuff, and Kinect Sports (both versions) sold well. This dev is pissed that he wasn’t able to work on stuff that interested him, I get that. It’s a good complaint that I respect. I also respect that he went off to find other work that might interest him. Him speaking of what could or could not be profitable is where things start to stretch into fantasyland. The article doesn’t say how low down the food chain this person was, but it sounds like he’s well on the lower ground. Which normally means he doesn’t get to see all the costs that go into making a new title, or is responsible if the title fails. Sounds like.. I don’t know who he was, and the article never says. To say that MS just passed on it because their dicks, and refuse to give an idea the time of day” is pure Fan Fiction. Unless you’re part of that group saying what gets made, and signs off on those silly budget things you’re full of crap.

You might be able to see that if you weren’t going “Roar, Microsoft sucks” so loud.

Calling bullshit on this one. Both the games they wanted to work on were some of the best of all fucking time. I don't disagree that some bullshit corporate think fucked them out of it, but lets not degrade their record by pretending that you know better.

 

[Veliko]

Calling bullshit on this one. Both the games they wanted to work on were some of the best of all fucking time. I don't disagree that some bullshit corporate think fucked them out of it, but lets not degrade their record by pretending that you know better.

Conker was good, and genuinely funny in places, but it wasn't that good.

Killer Instinct is just a beat em up.

 

[BenSkywalker]

People keep talking about the fighting games and platformers, my favorite Rare titles are the driving ones. The "real" original Cart racer, RC ProAM, and BlastCorps. Those were some, at the time, truly unique games with stellar gameplay(rarely is something both innovative and good in gaming, you remember it when someone nails them both).

 

[power_hour]

demoralized? lol

What did they think MS was going to do? Stock the fridge with beer, leave them the gold card on the table and gas up the limo?

Its a business. While I can't stand how MS does business or develops software (who names their latest software 2012 and then releases it in the 4th quarter?), its theirs to do what they want.

Personally the moment my shop was bought by MS, I would quit. Programmers are the brains and they get walked over because they let it happen.

Man up people. Man up.

 

[exar333]

Good job microsoft, let's not put out good 1st party games, let's spend time working on avatars and making sure kinect has the next jump in place and kick our arms and legs game out.

Look at the number of Kinect's sold and the number of these titles that might have. It's not hard to identify why MS made this decision.

This is from someone who LOVED CBFD and other Rare games, but they have pretty much been irrelevant since Goldeneye came out. I get nostalgic too, but they haven't been a great company for a long time since most traditional platformers died out.

 

[DeathRows]

Hey they are still putting out MK why not a new Killer Instinct. Fighting games are always good, no much time to invest into playing them.

 

[BD2003]

People keep talking about the fighting games and platformers, my favorite Rare titles are the driving ones. The "real" original Cart racer, RC ProAM, and BlastCorps. Those were some, at the time, truly unique games with stellar gameplay(rarely is something both innovative and good in gaming, you remember it when someone nails them both).

Cobra triangle and captain skyhawk were awesome back in the day.

 

[Aikouka]

BEST. NEWS. EVER.

For those of you who don't want to read, the USPTO finally did us a solid and refused Microsoft a renewal on the Killer Instinct trademark. Does this mean that people can start making Killer Instinct knock offs? Maybe one of our resident patent lawyers can fill us in!

 

[cmdrdredd]

BEST. NEWS. EVER.

For those of you who don't want to read, the USPTO finally did us a solid and refused Microsoft a renewal on the Killer Instinct trademark. Does this mean that people can start making Killer Instinct knock offs? Maybe one of our resident patent lawyers can fill us in!

Only because some stupid fox show was called Killer Instinct. and they thought people would confuse the two. They basically said everyone is stupid and can't tell the difference.

I doubt Microsoft wanted to do anything with the franchise. They still own the rights to the characters etc anyway. They were gonna sit on it.

 

[dagamer34]

It's pretty dumb of Microsoft to buy RARE and then not let them do what they are good at and instead make them develop shitty Kinect games.

That would be like Nintendo EAD saying eff it, forget Mario, Metroid and Zelda let's just develop MMORPG's!

What's sad is that Rare's last game with Nintendo (Star Fox Adventures) is infinitely better than whatever they've put out since being acquired by Microsoft. They pretty much killed whatever mojo they had at the company to the point that the founders just left.

And Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is such a slap in the face to BK fans that I outright refused to buy it. Had they made BK3, I'd be all over that shit since platforms have totally gotten the short shrift this generation. =/

 

[AdamantC]

Does no one remember all the crappy game show games and LJN horrors that Rare made during the late 1980s? Rare has just come full circle with with an angry case of karma on its tail.