Developer Biography #1: Rare

Games by Shindiggah on Jul 01, 2009

Im gonna be writing up biographys on the history of some game developers as blogs, why am I going to do this you ask? Because I can. :P

so here we go Rare: (this one I wrote a while ago for a gamespot union that is now dead so writing may be bad as it was written around a year ago.)

Rare started as a company founded by the two stamper brothers, Chris and Tim. They originally made games for theSinclair ZX Spectrum, an 8-bit personal computer popular in the UK. the company's original name was Ashby Computer and Graphics Ltd. For the Sinclair, they made two games that have gain popularity since they were created, these games were known as Sabrewulf and Jetpac.
After many years of working with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, they moved on to the NES to spread there game making knowledge. When they moved on to the NES, they changed there name to RARE. On the NES, they made several games worthy of note such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Marble Madness and Pirates. However, Rare's true gem on the NES was Battletoads, it was originally created to be a response to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, however it gained major popularity and helped to make Rare one of Nintendo's top producers. All together, for the NES and Gameboy, Rare produced over 60 games.

When nintendo traded in the NES for the SNES, the stamper brothers were not quite ready for it, so they were back to square one and had to relearn all techniques to makegames for this revolutionary system. Nintendo eventually purchased 49 % of Rares stocks, and thus made them an official nintendo producer. Nintendo gave rare there pick of a nintendo game to create for the SNES, and as we almost all know, they picked Donkey Kong. During the time that they wee creating Donkey Kong Country, they changed there name to Rareware. Donkey Kong Country was released in 1994 (my birth year! hooray!!1) and he became the un official mascot of Rareware. As we almost all know, Donkey Kong Country was released in 3 parts, DKC 1, DKC 2, and DKC3. All of which sold beautifully.

After Donkey Kong, Rareware was asked to make a game for the newly developed N64, at first there original idea was called Blast Corps, where they would have a shooting/ fighting sort of gamethat involved construction equipment. (I don't know very much about this game, sorry) However, they were asked to make a game tie in to the movie goldeneye. Now, Rare had never made a shooting game before, so this was a huge step for them. They spent years working on Goldeneye, and when it was finally done... it became a huge cornerstone for shooting games as we know them today!

After they were reastablished as top notch game developers, they turned back to a project that they called dream, which was about a boy named Edison, that had to take on a pirate named Blackbeard, with the help of a man rabbit, a dog and a Bear. However, Edison the rabbit and the dog were all eventually scrapped, and Banjo the bear became his replacement. So, Rare began working on there next great platformer Banjo Kazooie. The game never really had Kazooie, but Rare wanted to make the game realistic, so for a double jump they had a pair of wings sprouting out from Banjo's backpack, and to tackle steep slopes they had bird legs pop out. Eventually they realized that they might as well just have a bird living in his backpack and thus Kazoie was born. As we all know, banjo Kazooie is probably Rare's most popular franchise out to date, and almost all Rare fans (myself included)say that it is there favorite game. Also, another game that Rare made that is worth note was Diddy Kong Raing, which featured mascots Banjo and Conker.

After Banjo's huge success, Rare (inspired by the show Ghost in shell) made Perfect Dark, which is considered to be a spiritual successor to Goldeneye. The game was just as popular, if not more so than Goldeneye. After Perfect Dark, the N64 was getting to the end of its life span, and Rare had only enough time to shell out one more game. So, Conker's Bad Fur Day was born. Originally intended to be a regualr platformer like banjo, Rare decided to try and twist things up and they made it a potty mouthed adult humuor of a game, and it was named Conker's Bad Fur Day. Unfortunatly, since the game was at the very end of the N64's lifespan, it did not get very much public attention.

For the gamecube, Rare made the game Star Fox adventures. It was originally intended to have its own unique character known as wolf, however nintendo told Rare to replace him with Fox Mcloud. This game was the last game that Rare ever made for a nintendo home console.

After Star fox adventures, Microsoft bought out the majority of Rare's stocks from nintendo, and Rare became a 2nd party publisher for microsoft. The first game that rare released for Microsoft's home console the Xbox was called Grabbed By the Ghoulies, this game Grabbed by the ghoulies was Rare's biggest flop title ever. After Grabbed By the Ghoulies, Rare did a direct port of Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Xbox, it was renamed Conker Live and Reloaded. Unfortunatly, however like the original conker this one did not get as much attention.

While working on Microsoft's home console, Rare was permitted to work on Nintendo's portable console the Game boy advance. So Rare developed four different games for the nintendo game boy advance, they were as follows: Banjo Kazooie Grunty's Revenge, which was a top view platformer that unfortunatly did not get much publicity, another game was its Mr. Pants which was a puzzle game that was originally set to be used with donkey koong characters, however it never was. The third game was Sabrewulf, which unfortunatly I do not have any experience whatsoever with The fourth and final game that Rare developed for the GBA was Banjo Pilot, a racing game that like Grunty's Revenge got very little publicity and was critisized for its similarity to the Mario Kart series, yet is still praised as having some of the best graphics seen on a game boy advanced game.

After the game boy advance and Xbox era, Rare began making games for the Xbox 360 and Nintendo DS. So far for the 360, rare has made a prequel to Perfect Dark known as Perfect Dark Zero, a game that takes Rare back to its platforming roots called Kameo Elements of Power, Viva Pinata a game that despites some skeptisism still remains as one of the 360's best selling titles to date, Viva Pinata Trouble in Paradise, wich ironically is one of the 360's WORST selling titles to date, Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts a game that reinvents the banjo universe with what is considered some of the best uses of player created contenet on the platform, and Jetpac Refuelled a remake of there original Jetpac game that features both te original edition of the game and its updated re release.

for the DS rare has only developed 2 games so far (correct me if I am missing one) and they are Viva Pinata Pocket Paradise, and DIddy Kong Racing.

also as an added bonus here is a list of some of Rares most major games developed

Banjo Kazooie (n64)

Banjo Tooie (N64)

Banjo Kazooie Grunty's Revenge (GBA)

Banjo Pilot (GBA)

Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts (360)

Battle Toads (NES)*

007 Goldeneye (N64)

Perfect Dark (N64)

Perfect Dark Zero (360)

Kameo Elements of Power (360)