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First footage of Donkey Kong Racing in 7 years (plus Battletoads GBA)

watkinzez

Member
You know, the pre-rendered trailer Rare showed at E3 2001. It's an unofficial given that the project continued in development after the buyout, under the name Sabreman Stampede and featuring characters from main Rare franchises. Here's what it would have looked like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RbzE51k1I0

Much of the DKR team resigned in 2004, which pretty much sealed the game's fate. We missed out on a spiritual successor to the best kart racer ever made, plus a guaranteed awesome David Wise soundtrack. :(

Also, some very early footage of a Battletoads GBA game. Looks kinda bad, but it was clearly an 'in progress'. Banjo jump FX!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUVIIAa5lo

And this is a pretty old video, but Banjo-Pilot was originally supposed to be fully 3D as shown here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWTbqJIS5PE
 
That game looked shockingly good. I sometimes wonder how far Rare would have been able to push the Cube if had it not been for the divorce with Nintendo. I was saddened when this game was cancelled.
 

Jacobi

Banned
Coolio McAwesome said:
That game looked shockingly good. I sometimes wonder how far Rare would have been able to push the Cube if had it not been for the divorce with Nintendo. I was saddened when this game was cancelled.
I'd like to see a video of the perfect dark zero on GC
 

Sean

Banned
Sabreman Stampede footage makes me sad, looks pretty damn good for a beta. I always like seeing early clips and stuff of cancelled games, hopefully more stuff leaks out.
 

Hootie

Member
Battletoads looked absolutely hideous, even for an alpha version. If anything they should've just ported the SNES version of Battletoads.

But first they'd have to make the 3rd level actually possible to beat.
 
Yeah, that Battletoads game didn't look so hot. No more pre-rendered graphics, please. Especially of the ugly, grainy variety.

But I would have jumped with joy if I'd known a Battletoads game was in the works. I guess it's good that my spirits were never let up for disappointment.
 

jett

D-Member
Dear god, that Battletoads video is proof that anything that was ever good about Rare is long gone.
 

Oliver.S

Member
jett said:
Dear god, that Battletoads video is proof that anything that was ever good about Rare is long gone.
Banjo team is still intact.. And the handheld guys were always the weakest link.
 

CrunchinJelly

formerly cjelly
Oliver.S said:
Banjo team is still intact.. And the handheld guys were always the weakest link.
Itsmrpantsboxart.jpg
 

Captain N

Junior Member
Snaku said:
Holy crap, that Battletoads game looks like shit.

i know! that makes me sad..after all these years they could've at least made it look exactly like the old NES game if they can't do anything else good with it.
 
watkinzez said:
Much of the DKR team resigned in 2004, which pretty much sealed the game's fate. We missed out on a spiritual successor to the best kart racer ever made, plus a guaranteed awesome David Wise soundtrack. :(

:(

Rare wins the award for the most under-used and wasted composer talent of all time.
 
Where the link for the advertised "First footage of Donkey Kong Racing in 7 years"? All I see is Sabreman, Battletoads and Banjo.
 

[Nintex]

Member
AlphaTwo00 said:
Where the link for the advertised "First footage of Donkey Kong Racing in 7 years"? All I see is Sabreman, Battletoads and Banjo.
That sabreman game used to be Donkey Kong Racing.
 

quetz67

Banned
Loved the concept of DKR from the beginning...could work great on current hardware with perfect physics and kinematics
 

[Nintex]

Member
GoldandBlue said:
Would have been awesome if we got that Donkey Kong Racing game. Instead we got Donkey Kong Barrel Blast. :/
That's an entirely different project though. Paon's Barrel Blast had nothing to do with RARE's Donkey Kong Racing. I'm actually surprised that the game was in development, I thought it was just CG footage to hype the GameCube.
 
Is Donkey Kong Racing the same thing as Diddy Kong Racing?

If so, then I hope that this new version will somehow be released.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Hm, the 3d is still fairly impressive...I mean I always thought the GBA was comparable to a beefy SNES and the SNES cannot do that.
 

bdouble

Member
man are those new Wii games? :lol

Anyways I remember all the teasers on the site they used to put up of Sabreman. Looked like it could have been pretty sweet.
 

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
I thought Banjo Kazooie is the continuation of Donkey Kong Racing... the footage looks kind of meh..

Battle toads looks awful, thank God they didn't release that... It's better on my memories.

Banjo Pilot looks awesome, sadly the GBA game released didn't use this graphics.
 
Man, I didn't know most of the DKR team resigned in '04, probably got their projects fucked around with too much. Too bad, because DKR is the greatest single-player kart racer ever.
 
Donkey Kong Racing... :(

I really wish Nintendo and Rare had stayed together, it would have made the GC so much better to have DKR, Kameo, PD Zero, etc... even if Rare didn't match its N64 production on GC, it would have been great to have. That game's one example of why...

Battletoads GBA does look kind of bad though, doesn't it. Is that why they dropped the project?

Y2Kev said:
Hm, the 3d is still fairly impressive...I mean I always thought the GBA was comparable to a beefy SNES and the SNES cannot do that.

GBA actually is quite a bit more powerful than the SNES, graphically. It's not its fault that the vast majority of its games didn't push past the SNES... but a few did have actual 3d, beyond that demo. For instance:

Drome Racers (with a very Virtua Racing-ish look): http://www.gamespot.com/video/915161/6071428/drome-racers-movie-1

Smashing Drive (surprisingly good arcade conversion...): http://www.gamespot.com/video/922021/6114397/smashing-drive-gameplay-movie-1


NFS: Most Wanted (sure, it's ugly, but it's well beyond the capabilities of even a Super FX2-equipped SNES -- particularly at that framerate...): http://www.gamespot.com/video/927347/6140805/need-for-speed-most-wanted-gameplay-movie-2
etc.

NFS Carbon (like the last one, but slightly improved graphically -- it should be, it was the fifth and last NFS game on the GBA...): http://gameboy.ign.com/dor/objects/837020/need-for-speed-carbon/videos/nfscarbongba_110806_1.html

Now, the SNES definitely has better music capabilities. GBA carts are larger, allowing for a lot more speech and such, but the system can't match the SNES in music. But in graphics? It's definitely a good step above the SNES.

Really, Banjo Pilot should have been doable in 3d, as shown in that demo video.
 
Oliver.S said:
Banjo team is still intact.. And the handheld guys were always the weakest link.

Probably true. I have Conker for GBC and it's pretty meh, never finished it. I own Sabre Wulf for GBA and it's a pretty good platformer, though not the at the level of their SNES/N64 era output. I've also played through BK Grunty's Revenge and while enjoyable, it has nothing on the console BKs. Now if you consider the Donkey Kong Land series and DKC ports, the quality goes up a bit.

I wish Rare had stayed with Nintendo, even if their quality seemingly started to decline, at least with the mediocre Star Fox Adventures; you can't really judge on one game only after all. After that they were pretty much hampered for the rest of the generation. If Banjo dissapoints then I guess the "Rare sucks" stigma can be justified.
 
"Beta footage from Rare's cancelled Sabreman game. Started off as Donkey Kong Racing on Gamecube, which became Sabreman Stampede on Gamecube/Xbox, and was an adventure game for Xbox 360 when it was cancelled. "

That almost looks like the kind of progression Conker 64 did
 
Rlan said:

Yeah, that looks quite good for the system too. I think that thanks to its style, though, Drome Racers might look the best of the bunch... the clean, shaded look looks great here.

Allan Holdsworth said:
I wish Rare had stayed with Nintendo, even if their quality seemingly started to decline, at least with the mediocre Star Fox Adventures; you can't really judge on one game only after all. After that they were pretty much hampered for the rest of the generation. If Banjo dissapoints then I guess the "Rare sucks" stigma can be justified.

Despite the massive delays, SFA(dventures) was rushed out, because Rare needed to finish it before leaving Nintendo. Had they not left, I think the game would have been at least slightly improved versus the very disappointing game we got...

Of course, those constant delays were part of why Nintendo decided to let them go, but even so, SFA would have been better if Rare hadn't left. And I'm sure Rare would have published more games on the GC after that point than they did the Xbox during its life (two).

Probably true. I have Conker for GBC and it's pretty meh, never finished it. I own Sabre Wulf for GBA and it's a pretty good platformer, though not the at the level of their SNES/N64 era output. I've also played through BK Grunty's Revenge and while enjoyable, it has nothing on the console BKs. Now if you consider the Donkey Kong Land series and DKC ports, the quality goes up a bit.

Maybe the handheld games weren't quite the amazing classics of console Rare from DKC to Conker, but they weren't bad either, and as you say, the DKL games were pretty fun.
 

watkinzez

Member
GitarooMan said:
Man, I didn't know most of the DKR team resigned in '04, probably got their projects fucked around with too much. Too bad, because DKR is the greatest single-player kart racer ever.

Not all, but key staff (like Martin Wakeley, the guy behind Blast Corps and Jet Force Gemini) no longer work there. An archived site I can't recall the address of basically said they were left with a handful of people and an unfinished project.
 

nofi

Member
Dammit Rare used to be amazing. Amazing.

I played DKR at University almost every day. Stunning stuff.
 

Jacobi

Banned
Some more good GBA 3D efforts:

Stuntman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W5YOCW3r1Y

Colin Mc Rae
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSYP90uanA4

V-Rally (IMO the best effort)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3Sk_yBfVU

And for a change: Iridion 3D a shooter... Although this game doesn't sport "actual 3D"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS20pG0cw5I

For some reason most of these are European :p

edit:
Found this: Radium - an unreleased prototype. Looks cool though and really reminds me of old PC stuff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4JcpKJZUxQ

Driv3R is also an honorable effort
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1novUrRnu8

The last one, I promise: KillSwitch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDL_OAyKAbs
 
Holy shit Battletoads looks abysmal. It's like they took Frogger and gave him ugly long Sonic the Hedgehog legs and spiked shoulder pads. I mean, I know the gameplay is early and everything, but just the art style alone. Bleaugh.

If Rare ever did another Battletoads game it would have to be with the original character designs. They are cheesy 80's/90's in a good way.

I wonder how this stuff got out? Rare usually seems so tight-lipped and locked down regarding beta versions of software.
 

[Nintex]

Member
Sega1991 said:
Rare usually seems so tight-lipped and locked down regarding beta versions of software.
So far we've seen:
Perfect Dark Xbox beta, Sabreman Stampede, renders/artwork from Star Fox Adventures(which showed scenes cut from the game). Battletoads GBA and Banjo Pilot 3D.

RARE is anything but locked down and tight-lipped.
 
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