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Rare: Celebrating 30 years of gaming glory

Y

Yami

Member
Believe it or not, Red Bull Gaming has an incredibly in-depth, exclusive article detailing the history of Rare. From the days when it was known as Ultimate Play The Game, the article discusses Rare's original games, mentions its Game Boy rival that never made it to production (named the Playboy), contains an anecdote of Miyamoto and cricket, while Steve Ballmer wonders what to do with Conker Live & Reloaded, and talks about what the future holds for the company. There are also quotes from key staff such as Chris Seavor, Paul Machacek and Gregg Mayles tying it all up nicely.

A few excerpts:

Founded by siblings Tim and Chris Stamper, Ultimate was based in a small office above the drugstore owned by their father. At the time, the video game development scene was dominated by the likes of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and BBC Micro - personal computers designed for more sedate tasks - and Ultimate's output was the cream of the crop.

Titles like Sabre Wulf, Lunar Jetman and the iconic Knight Lore were in a different league to their contemporaries, and Ultimate quickly became one of the most popular developers of the period, earning itself legions of loyal fans. "Ultimate stood out as being the best studio, full stop," Paul Machacek, who joined the company back in the '80s and today is Rare's Test & User Research Manager, tells Red Bull. "After I came on board, Tim Stamper told me that they’d been receiving letters from people with £10 notes inside and a return address asking for the next unannounced Ultimate game to be sent to them as soon as it was ready."
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"The company needed to earn money, so a lot of games were started because a deal to write something for an IP had been struck," says Machacek. "This contractual work was mixed with some original content, but there was a desire to get away from the contractual and be self-sufficient in creating our own IP.”

Their first attempt became the legendary beat’ em up Battletoads. Released when the Ninja Turtles were being exposed to a global audience for the first time, Battletoads was a masterstroke of creativity - and technology. "I remember programmer Mark Betteridge coming back from a trade show and saying that everyone had been asking what this Battletoads demo was running on," reveals Machacek with a smile. "Surely it was the next Nintendo console in disguise, or there was extra hardware in the cartridge? In fact, it was just clever software tricks running on a standard NES."
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"I remember being accosted by a drunken executive at one of Nintendo’s E3 parties," remembers Seavor, who wrote, directed and designed the game, as well as providing voices for many of the characters. "They really didn’t like Conker and told me so. Within Nintendo of America, I got the feeling Conker wasn’t all that appreciated." Seavor would encounter similar confusion when the game was later remade for the Xbox. "I demoed Conker Live & Reloaded to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once and his main comment was ‘How are we gonna market this?’" Conker may have baffled Nintendo and Microsoft, but it's the perfect example of how Rare has bravely defied conventions in the past and created classic titles in the process.
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Source: http://www.redbull.com/us/en/games/stories/1331622907452/rare-celebrating-30-years-of-gaming-glory

Blimmin' impressed, and who would have guessed Rare was making its own handheld!?
 
Of my top 20 games of all time, Rare is the one company that has the greatest presence. Conker, Banjo 1 and 2, Jet Force Gemini, Goldeneye and Perfect Dark in that order. All masterpieces in their own right. Rare in their heyday was pretty much the golden age of gaming, really.

That makes their current status all the more heartbreaking.

Also, that quote from Steve Balmer about Conker makes me want to punch babies, seriously.
 
potam said:
Can we at least count the Conker remake? That one was amazing.


edit: how many of the original (or at least SNES/N64) people are still there?
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The original shits all over the remake in every way. That multiplayer, compared to the original, was a disgrace.
 
They write that title and then they use a Banjo Nuts & Bolts screenshot as a header

LLShC.gif
 
potam said:
Can we at least count the Conker remake? That one was amazing.


edit: how many of the original (or at least SNES/N64) people are still there?
Click to expand...

Gregg Mayles (Banjo creator.) Robin Beanland (Killer Instinct/Viva Pinata composor.) Ken Lobb (head Microsoft Studios guy.)

Echoing others; Mr. Pants, Nuts and Bolts, Viva Pinata, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Jetpac Refueled, and hell today Killer Instinct (It's still Rare's IP) are great.
 
No one goes in to make a shitty game, but it looks like the cards haven't been in RARE's favor for a while. Oh well...
 
potam said:
Oh, I know. The N64 MP was amazing, but aside from that I don't remember the game being very different
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Ironically, the XBOX version was censored to all hell whereas the N64 version wasnt at all apart from the word Fuck.

It absolutely fucking ruined it.

Also, Rare's best game was and will always be Donkey Kong Country 2.
 
Sadly for me Rare was dead after the N64 for me.
I know they have done some ok things in the last 10 years but not really for me like they did in the N64 and SNES days.
 
The Dutch Slayer said:
Sadly for me Rare was dead after the N64 for me.
I know they have done some ok things in the last 10 years but not really for me like they did in the N64 and SNES days.
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Yeah this is how I feel as well. The Microsoft buyout was the death of them when it really should have been a rebirth.
 
Fuck the haters, I enjoyed B&K: N&B, Kinect Sports and Viva Pinata. They aren't up there with the greatest of Rare games, but get solid 7/8's from me and I look forward to what they put out in the future.
 
I will always have a deep rooted respect for Rare from the N64 era. Alas things are totally different now. :(
 
EvilKatarn said:
Kameo 2 character art was amazing.

Instead we got fucking avatars. Unbelievable.
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http://kotaku.com/5269441/the-untold-story-of-the-xbox-360-avatars

Rare had the idea for avatars and then told MS, not the other way around. While it's true I wish they could've kept multiple teams and not entirely become Avatar/Kinect/Tech focused, the way some posters here act as if no one within Rare, or on Earth, could enjoy making Avatars and the Kinect Sports games is funny tbh.
 
Nintendo and Rare really was a match made in heaven. I think we all knew that Microsoft buying them meant the end of their time as a top developer.

The things they've been forced to work on in recent years...it's just depressing. At least they gave us one more classic (Viva Pinata) before their soul was extinguished forever.
 
The early 360 years of Rare were the right games on the wrong platform.

Actually the last 5 years of Rare are still the right games on the wrong platform. Blatant Nintendo rip-offs are meant to go on the N64, silly Rare!
 
I did enjoy Kameo, nuts and bolts. Good games. More importantly Gregg Mayles, father of banjo is still there, I just hope he's utilised for a non Kinect game. Would love him to helm the new Crackdown game
 
Kintaro said:
Going to go with this. They have been a non factor since 2002 and most of their NES output back in the day was garbage before Battletoads.
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Would disagree myself. Their NES games include Wizard and Warriors, Cobra Triangle, RC Pro Am, and Snake Rattle 'n' Roll. Some golden games.


ed

Apparently they didn't dev Cabal.
 
Surface of Me said:
http://kotaku.com/5269441/the-untold-story-of-the-xbox-360-avatars

Rare had the idea for avatars and then told MS, not the other way around. While it's true I wish they could've kept multiple teams and not entirely become Avatar/Kinect/Tech focused, the way some posters here act as if no one within Rare, or on Earth, could enjoy making Avatars and the Kinect Sports games is funny tbh.
Click to expand...

I did not imply that MS forced them to make avatars, though one could easily suspect that.
The fact that we got those horrible abominations over Kameo 2 and other original projects is what's unbelievable, be it the fault of Microsoft's influence or not.
 
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