Throwback Thursday: Crappy Rare Games

PDZ and Kameo aren't setting sales records or getting rave reviews. But, things could be a lot worse. Battletoads, one of Rare's first big hits wasn't that good. In fact it remains one of the most impossibly hard games ever made. Ask around and all most people remember is the "Pause Music" from this Ninja Turtle knock-off. Amazingly, things went downhill from there. BattleToads VS Double Dragon matched the amphibious avatars with Billy and Jimmy Lee for a race into video game obscurity. This game was and is a horror to behold. Nintendo then handed them Donkey Kong and Rare hit it big with a masterful reinvention of the big ape. Donkey Kong Country was great. DKC2 and DKC3 followed quickly with diminishing returns and less likably characters. GoldenEye is still held up as a triumph, but a quick look at Rare's other N64 titles. Diddy Kong Racing wasn't bad, but certainly not loved like Mario Kart. Banjo Kazooie came out in time for players thirsting for more games like Mario 64... and it worked if all you liked about Mario 64 was collecting shit for the sake of collecting it. Donkey Kong 64 more or less ruined any progress made with DKC, and is probably the reason we haven't had a real DK game since. Jet Force Gemini... I know I played it but I can't remember anything about it, which is worse than being bad because its like the game doesn't even exist... Looking at their timeline on the official Rareware page, I see a lot of forgettable stuff. Thats probably true of a lot of developers and maybe they don't deserve a whole post dedicated to their less great games. But who am I kidding, this post about one thing, and one thing only... They helped killed Star Fox. Star Fox 64 was hands down one of the best shooters I've ever played and deserved a worthy sequel. I won't blame Rare for all of this, since they were developing a different game called Dinosaur Planet and then were asked by Nintendo Corporate to put Fox in it. They are guilty of half assing the flight levels, turning in another bad adventure game, and not even bothering to explore Star Fox's universe at all by rehashing the ending from the last game. Star Fox Assault might never have happened if Fox didn't get out of the goddamn ship. If Rare hadn't released its 5th crappy 3D platformer in a row, Star Fox might've had a chance. Now one of Nintendo's greatest potential franchises is risking falling into complete obscurity since Star Fox 64 is the only really good game in the series (the SNES original was groundbreaking and fun, but its too primitive to warrant being a classic). Goddamn you Rare. I really hope Microsoft cracks the whip and gets some better stuff out of you because I know you're capable of it. You don't want your studio being constantly damned by Grabbed By The Ghoulies and the Conker remake.