Yooka Laylee

King of Posters
#1

I played the first hour of this game (I backed it, I did not buy it new like a chump). It’s fine? Better than Banjo Kazooie so far RE: moving around and controls. We’ll see how far that goes. It looks pretty nice so far, although it’s hard to navigate the world I’ve played in so far thanks to a shocking lack of unique landmarks.

The music is charming and deeply reminiscent of Banjo Kazooie’s soundtrack…probably a given considering the same person composed both.

Actually, the music is more reminiscent of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts which, by the way, is a fantastic game.

Seriously, why did people hate that game? It was one of the best games of the generation. Sure, it wasn’t a “Collect every fucking thing in sight” kind of game, but that’s a pretty bad reason to hate a game. Building and driving vehicles in Nuts and Bolts is probably the best vehicular experience I’ve had in any game, ever. I once built a large tank that had another, smaller tank inside of it that could be released with the press of a button. My ex-step-sister (long story) built a triangular vehicle with wheels on its back side that, when it tipped backwards (because it was poorly balanced) drove with reversed controls. I had a plane that was also a submarine.

But gamers (who I will from this point refer to as “fucking dunces”) decided that it wasn’t a true Banjo Kazooie game, i.e. a slog and a half, and so they didn’t buy the game that would have provided them with the most joy possible in their short and brutish lives. “There’s not enough collectibles” the gamers (who i will refer to as “steaming piles of radioactive waste”) whined. “Why can’t I unlock new moves?” the gamers (“wretched caricatures of humanity”) asked futilely. But there was no answer, except for the humming of their HD TVs (improperly calibrated) and the sad song of completely missing the point.

Anyway, Yooka Laylee is alright I guess.

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#2

Same problem as many failed CONSUMER PRODUCTS – it defied expectation. Only weirdos like being pleasantly surprised.

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#3

yeah that’s the boring, sad truth. I got really angry about this while I played Yooka-Laylee. I think that’s going to be my experience of this game.

#4

oh and – thank you @Father.Torque for linking Trap Door last week because now I finally can see the source material for Banjo’s humor. Random surliness by eye-globbits and splatty slapstick always makes me happy and that right there is what I like in Banjo.

Man, just watching this little puke burpin’ around – it’s stolen seven times over in Banjo but it’s funny either way

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#5

i probably don’t run in the right circles but i think the only things i heard about N&B from people (as opposed to games media) were glowingly positive

#6

That definitely wasn’t me, way too British. Brooks I think

#7

whoops

Someone brought up Armikrog and it was asked, ‘why can’t all adventure games be as stylish as this? [Trap Door link] is basically the best adventure game in 5 minutes’

#8

Every time Yooka dives into his rolling maneuver, he sounds like he’s horking up a hairball

#9

Can’t wait to pirate Armikrog

Y-L looks and sounds exactly like it’s supposed to, which is exactly like B-K, a boring and overrated classic. I think Yooka and Laylee are cuter than Banjo and Kazooie though.

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#10


Banjo-Kazooie doesn’t exist. More specifically, the version of it that we remember never existed. Nostalgia warps perception and colors what we recall. Banjo-Kazooie is a great game. The characters are fun, the music is charming, and the exploration is top notch. But it’s not perfect and no matter how much we might want to return to it, we can never return to the version that never was. Yooka-Laylee tries to recreate everything we loved about Banjo-Kazooie but it never asks if old flaws could be improved or if the thing it wants to recreate ever existed. It’s fun but slowly begins to fall apart as time goes on.

There was a French philosopher named Jean Baudrillard. One of his many concerns was the study of symbols and simulation. In one piece of writing, he talks about the efforts of historians to preserve the body of Ramses II. In noting cultural fascination surrounding the preservation of Ramses II, Baudrillard observed that what people were really striving to protect was a specific outlook on history. They weren’t trying to preserve Ramses II; they wanted to protect the notion of history he represented, a mythical history where western civilization drew intellectual strength from past rulers of agreed upon significance.

We can apply this concept to Yooka-Laylee. Creating Yooka-Laylee is a bit like preserving an old mummy. We dress up a version of past events that positions certain games as more significant than they were. The goal is not to make a fun game; it is to make a game that reinforces a romanticized outlook on game history that places excessive emphasis on the Nintendo 64 and early 3-D platformers.

this is… a very bad review

right?

like, i only read it because the headline seemed promising

but know i want to know if i’m alone in thinking it’s a very bad review

(i should clarify that i think yooka-laylee looks Bad and also that B-K is Bad)

2 Likes
#11

Holy shit the narration in that video drives me nuts. And there is no reason for it to be a video.

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#12

like holy shit i can play it right now

i don’t need to remember it I CAN PLAY IT RIGHT NOW

#13

but why would you want to

#14

i just think it’s funny that she’s like “it doesn’t exist like you remember” immediately followed by “it’s a great game” “exploration is top-notch”… like holy shit can you stop reminiscing and go play it again, it is none of those things lol

#15

yeah that’s real bad. 80% of it could have been written without even playing the game. says it’s “making the same mistakes” without specifying what those are, or saying anything specific at all. the fact that this is banking on nostalgia and a certain view of the past isn’t even a vaguely interesting observation, it’s what it was explicitly aiming for from it’s conception. You certainly don’t need Baudrillard to explain it lol

#16

I think it’s funny that the article insinuates that BK’s music was good

As if oom-pah is tolerable

#17

oh man i skimmed through the text version of this review this morning and couldn’t handle it, and my skim didn’t even hit any of the baudrillard mentions (which seems crazy now that i see the whole thing)

i don’t ever want to hear anybody writing about games mention nostalgia ever again

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#18

Always ctrl f baudrillard before you read a video game thing

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#19

post can’t be empty

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#20

Yeah that article is bad. I usually like her stuff but this is a pretty poor reading that doesn’t even really strike the surface level.

I think BK is an alright game for what it wants to be! Which is a light platforming game with neat environments and simple puzzles. It’s charming to a kid, and it uses a light enough touch to spur the imagination. I suppose it’s impossible to separate it from its circumstances though, and as a stand-alone game in anno Luigi 2017, yeah, it’s pretty bad.

There’s a nice goof in Yooka Laylee. There’s an enemy that’s just a pair of googly eyes which, when encountered, will attach itself to any random inanimate object and make the object animated. It’s funny, the first time anyway. But the 5th time and beyond it’s really annoying because it’s unclear how to attack the object and actually destroy it. I think this is Y-K in a nut(s and bolt)shell.