Creative: The Making of the Layton Album

Art by AdamOne (the 3rd) Cartwright

The creation of the album we've dubbed Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher was an adventure, a trial in the face of extreme adversity, and an experience of personal growth for those involved. Though extremely cliché, these words are nothing short of truth. It's hard for me to recall many of the specific details, they were extensive, but I’ll do my best to convey them here. Some time back in November, 2011, after Juja and I had recovered from making Pixel Glass, gone on tour, and got back to our regular lives, we starting entering into Dwelling of Duels again, making tracks for the sole purpose of entering into the contest and becoming better musicians in the process. We never did particularly well, but it was a lot of fun and over the next year or so Juja had the idea to make a Layton vs Dexter themed song for one of the site's regular "free month" contests. I forget exactly why but there were a lot of delays involved with arranging the song, and somewhere through the process, perhaps in early/mid 2012, we thought it would be cool to maybe make an album based on that song concept. Being a bit over-excited, I had the artwork made the next week by my friend Adam, while Juja and I put together a list of the songs we wanted to record. 

We originally intended it to be sort of a "best/worst of Dwelling of Duels entries, plus the Dexter vs Layton song", but the more time we put into arranging the Dexter song, the more months of DoD we entered (which took away from arranging the title track), and the more track ideas Juja and I had for recording and including on the album... We just sort of had a bunch of fun ideas of “oh, let’s do this”, which is how we normally operate, and worked towards recording those songs, quickly bringing an 8 track album to 17 tracks, to 20. It didn't help that Juja was also helping me record tracks for original songs I was working on as well. We were busy guys, just having fun putting together music, learning more about recording techniques with each passing month. At one point I got Juja a better interface so he wouldn't have to record with a 3 second delay, and got myself a really nice headset so I could get an accurate feel for the music we were mixing. I also learned how to program drums, making my first attempt on a Puzzle Theme, but eventually getting pretty alright at it. I also learned a lot about editing, pitch correction, and mixing/mastering while experimenting on this project over the years.

Picture of the 36 hour recording rig

Somewhere in early 2012 I got really depressed for 6 months and stopped working on music altogether (except for shows with RE). I can't remember why I got so depressed, I don't want to. It hit me hard and didn't let up for a very long time. When I finally got out of my depression an unfortunate loss hit Juja and he couldn't really be reached for a few months either. We both got out of our slumps briefly to put together a December entry for DoD then Juja and I stopped talking for another 3 months. It wasn't that we fought or anything, we were both just going through personal stuff and didn't really make any progress on the album. Juja didn't play guitar, I didn't play accordion beyond any band-related obligations I had... But with time we both were able to recover, probably thanks to a call from my good friend Helios, who was moving back to the US from South Korea after 6 years of being away. In addition to being the other founding member of Random Encounter, Helios is someone I genuinely consider family, though we're not related. Over the years he’s pushed me to be a better musician, helped me find a direction, musical outlet, and encouraged me to keep at it when no one else (except my dear mother) would. The thought of him being a mere 3 hour flight away really inspired me... And after talking with Helios on the phone for the first time in a year or more, he agreed to fly in for a weekend and record whatever I wanted on piano, the instrument he had gone to college to perfect the art of. I booked the flight and spent a few weeks arranging the music, mostly the stuff he and I had always wanted to record as Random Encounter but had never got to properly do before he moved away... As Helios was engaged at the time (they got married later), and Juja wanted to also be involved to some extent, we decided to stream the weekend-long recording session. Despite 5 really important piano keys breaking in the opening moments of the recording session the weekend was a success. We recorded for a total of 36 hours, averaged 20-40 viewers (even well into the early hours of the morning), and finishing a whopping 30 songs!!! Despite being utterly insane, the experience reinvigorated us (at least myself) to get back on the proverbial horse and finish the album we started almost two years prior.

There was another huge delay in starting our album, the acceptance of Careless Juja live to Nerdapalooza, which in itself was an immense undertaking, but I already had most of my parts of the album recorded, and it would be good practice for the dreaded Layton solo, so I didn't see it as such a bad thing. In short, Adam (the artist), Juja, Helios, and a half dozen other musicians played some of our songs in a live setting. It was awesome and it was about this time that we hired Brandon Strader (who wrote his own version of the making of the this album here), a really talented guy we knew from DoD and from his album called Random Encounter (which I'd discovered while looking up my band on google). He seemed fairly approachable, so we tried to get him to help us arrange, mix, and master our title track, which needed to sound amazing... But in working with the guy it was really clear to Juja and myself that he understood what we were about, that he's really talented, and that he was just as passionate about our music as we were. While we didn't intend to outsource mixing our entire album, he was a lot more talented than us, extremely friendly, and open to the idea. Now, instead of simply re-releasing DoD tracks on an album, we'd be properly mixing them, re-recording parts, editing others, and really making every track sound as good as possible. Strader finished arranging the Dexter theme while Juja and I worked on the logistics of the live show.

Careless, Helios, Juja, and Ben (my nephew) at Walmart…

Shortly before the Nerdapalooza show

After the Nerdapalooza show, thanks to a mix of Strader's enthusiasm and the good vibes we got from playing the show, Juja and I immediately got to recording. I had just picked up a new recording technique called "recording with dynamics", which made my accordion sound significantly better than any previous method of recording, so though it was really unenjoyable to do, I felt it was right to go back and literally re-record many of the songs I'd spent the last 2 years recording... Including the dreaded Professor Layton solo that literally look me 3 months of daily practice to perfect, and 6 hours to record the perfect take. Sort of like the salmon commercials boasting that they "endure the worst to bring you the best", during the making of this album I broke two accordions (reeds popped out, mics broke), my home completely flooded with 2+ inches of water, twice, my water-pump system & AC broke the same day during the start of my big 4 day "heat-wave recording session" (no AC and no water to the building for 4 solid days of recording), the piano broke 4 additional keys when I started to record the touch-ups to Helios' parts, the computer with all the recordings for the entire album died, the backup hard drive with all the recordings was physically dropped (by me, carelessly down a flight of stairs) and destroyed immediately after the file transfer, there were technical failures at just about every recording session, everyone involved caught some pretty intense sicknesses, and Strader's car was shot with real gunfire after two of his neighbors got into a scuffle and decided to kill one another... I'm sure there are worse horror stories out there for album creations but I just wanted to illustrate the literal blood, mucus, sweat, and tears rendered into the tracks of this album.

Careless Juja

Around Nerdapalooza we hosted a Kickstarter, got lots of help from 8bitX and Nerdapalooza advertising it, and reached our goal in the final hours. I really can't emphasize that without the help of our Kickstarter backers we really couldn't have afforded to put the album together... While putting together a track listing a few weeks later, as we looked at a 35+ track album, we deduced that the average Compact Disc can only hold 70 minutes of music, and that we'd promised to deliver all of the 35 songs. It didn’t take Professor Layton to tell us that we needed to change what we had a problem on our hands… I firmly believed that a two disc Layton album would be a bad idea because I felt the Dexter vs Layton theme wasn't dynamic enough (we didn't have enough music from Layton and didn't want to add more songs as we were already behind schedule) for an epic 2 CD's of music. We also didn't think that people would want two back-to-back discs of our music and didn't have any new ideas for additional album art that fit the theme. Still, we wanted to make sure that all our backers got everything we promised, so in the end I came up with a pretty interesting idea for another album concept, which we could work on after Juja, Strader, and I finished the Layton album.

Interior Album Art

After the recording phase was complete in April (it took a lot of time to coordinate our efforts with the various guest drummers/artists), Juja and I were fairly burnt out (I also juggle Random Encounter, a half-dozen musical collaborations, and Juja works on other music projects too), so we took a breather of sorts while Strader worked his magic... Well, that’s actually sort of a lie... I was working with my good friend Peter Pepper to write the script for the "other album" while Juja and myself were arranging/recording songs for it. In early June, we got a message from Strader saying he was almost done and we spent the entire weekend of June 14th in back and forth conversations in a three way chat, listening to tracks, finalizing, and tweaking the entire album. It was at this point that we decided to throw in the Punch Out song, because it sounded good and Juja had jokingly posted the song to the Careless Juja facebook page as “something that has nothing to do with the Layton album.” This is also where Strader went from “really awesome mixing guy” to “really insanely awesome mixing guy” in my books.

Victory picture from the Airport Terminal I slept in

During that weekend I realized that I’d forgotten to record the intro jingle to our intro track and recorded it using the musical typing feature (literally using my computer's keyboard) while on a flight from Atlanta to Boston. I got a bunch of looks from other people on the plane... Also, at the last possible minute of the final day, Juja informed Strader and I that the intro piano bit in the Layton song was completely wrong... He had apparently transcribed it wrong years ago and had forgotten to fix it. Luckily Strader is a super chill guy and literally 6 hours before the final mixed/mastered tracks were to be submitted to the CD printing company, I recorded the updated version of the piano tracks, he mixed them in, and they made it into the final cut.

I write all of this before the album has been released, little over a week before our album premiere/release/listening party on 8BitX.com [update: posted 1 day before the release], before anyone besides the three of us has really heard any of the tracks, and I'm unsure how our album is going to be received… I do know that I'm proud of our new album, that we probably couldn't have made it any better. My personal goal of creating & releasing these songs to the world has been a success, so I am without regret, though admittedly it would be cool if people beyond us enjoy this too. Juja and Strader are of a similar mindset, and we sincerely hope you enjoy our latest creation: Professor Layton & the Bay Harbor Butcher.

Travel Journal: Video Games Live FL Tour

Photo stolen from the Orlando Weekly

Through a series of circumstances that would take far too long to explain here, last Thursday, while on the road to Spectrum Live) we confirmed that we would be playing a series of shows with none other than Tommy Tallarico and his project: Video Games Live.

Tibbs Greeted me at Moose's house...
I'll swap these with better photos once we get them.

On the drive up to Orlando, our tour van had absolutely no problems. This is a first in our band’s history. I had brakes, I didn’t have to check the fluid levels for leaks, the heat gauge didn’t randomly spike, frogs didn’t appear while I was driving at high speeds, there were no hornet nests in the fuselage when I stopped for gas, the van started on the first try, and only three blinking indicators on the display console (which I’ve been told to ignore and have long since gotten use to) gently glowed while I drove the meet with the band in Orlando.

I arrived at practice at 7:15pm, technically 15 minutes late but I had to pass some really bad traffic after a truck had somehow completely flipped on I-4, a technical feat I’m not sure I could replicate from the middle lane. Moose and I practiced together, because everyone else seemed to be stuck in the traffic until about 9:30pm (did I mention it was REALLY bad?). That was the first and only time as a full band we went through the song we’d be playing with the orchestra, Chrono Trigger/Cross, and the first time we’d played together in about two weeks.

As we practiced, Moose accidently threw one his sticks, which I remarked would inevitably hit one of the orchestra performers, or worse, Tommy in the face should it happen at one of the shows we were about to play. We packed, drove back to Kit’s because we forgot to pack merch, and fell asleep at about 1am.

"I wanna Go Too"

Defying all modern stereotypes and expectations society places on rock bands, we woke up on Friday at 6:45am and were gone less than 15 minutes later. I drove us to a local gas station, because we were literally a mile or few from being truly empty, and a particularly irritating CVS attendant (located next to the gas station) prevented Rook from acquiring batteries until 7:15am.

"The Band"[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

We got back on the open road, picked up our friend and photographer Jeff Douglas, and returned to the open road, passing a scene right out of a 90’s buddy-cop flick: a series of police cars that pulled over one depressed looking guy who was sitting on the hood of his car while it was searched. Nothing else eventful happened until we reached Miami, within sight of the colossal Adrienne Arsht Center. All of us were pretty dumbfounded looking at the amazing size and architecture because not only was it a pretty building to look at… but we would be performing inside of it… Having been inside the venue in the previous months I mentioned to the band that the stage itself is larger than most BUILDINGS we’ve performed inside of. This was both an amazing and terrifying prospect.

The Arsht Center[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

We found our way to the security desk at the loading area and checked in. I really had to use the bathroom, so the security guard gave me special permission to do so before receiving my badge. I returned to the quizzical stare of building manager (I forget the proper title but this person controls the building, except for the actual stage itself and “backstage” areas), who wondered how I’d made it inside without meeting her and I explained my need to use the bathroom. The relevance here is that is sparked a 10 minute conversation where we talked about Distant Worlds, the Hyrule Symphony, and the fact that the manager was the first person on her block to beat the original Mario Bros. I was curious if any of the venue staff or musicians on the stage were gamers, or if they even had an appreciation for the video game music taking place within their halls and as I chatted with more and more people throughout the weekend it was clear that they genuinely had an appreciation, even if they didn’t consider themselves gamers. This isn’t meant to be a snooty elitist observation or anything, it’d be perfectly fine if they were just doing their job (and some were), it was just cool that the majority of the people I got to talk with were excited to be a part of VGL and were passionate about the music.

My view from the stage

By 11:30am we had unloaded and were in our green room, which, in a hall filled with signs like names, “Crew”, “Orchestra”, and “Choir”, was simply labeled “the Band,” which we liked. This was due to some confusion where the venue had only just learned specifically who we were on the morning of the show. The band green room boasted a television that showed a live feed of the stage (complete with the house mix), a shower, a vanity, a closet, and lots of open lounging space. I think one of us did an impersonation of the Sound of Music field/hills scene upon entry. As we stood by the main widow of our room, I recognized Tommy Tallarico sporting a set of awesome red shows, and waved at him with Moose. We thought the windows were tinted and didn’t expect him to actually see us. However, he could and motioned for us to unlock the door to let him in. Once inside we made semi-formal introductions and he chatted with the band for a few minutes. Tommy is a really friendly guy and even Kit, who though he’d be utterly intimidated by the rockstar/video game creator, soon felt at ease. Tommy took really good care of us throughout the day (and greater weekend), checking up on us regularly, and making us feel at home within VGL. The only way to describe it is to say that we felt like long time acquaintances or friends of his that he was taking very special care of. He shared stories, like the time he exchanged guitar licks with Steve Vai, the last time he’d played an accordion, and he also introduced us to the VGL conductor, Emmanuel Fratianni, aka the friendly neighborhood writer of the soundtrack to the Amazing Spiderman!

Meeting Tommy Tallarico[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

We took to the stage for our sound check, did that, and were told to return a few hours later for a rehearsal. It was really incredibly to look off at the rows and rows of empty seats from the stage and think that people might actually be sitting in them when we performed. While the rest of the band went back to the green room to prepare/relax, I sat in the dead center of the audience to watch the orchestra/choir rehearse. It was an unforgettable experience… I was blown away as 60+ people masterfully played their instruments to an empty room, save for myself and the sound/lighting crew. I’m not sure if it was the performance, the songs (which have personal significance to me), or a mix of both but I found myself tearing up at many parts throughout the performance, and admittedly I actually moved to tears during Metal Gear and Sonic. It sounds cheesy, but I really was. There are very few times in my life I’ll get to experience such a thing and I was moved.

A Picture of the Promo Picture being taken

At one point between songs Tommy pointed at me from the stage and asked if I’d seen the stage manager. I said no and was asked if I could play Guitar Hero… Being fairly awful at Guitar Hero I was a bit nervous when I said yes, and was told to come onto the stage and play while the orchestra played to my performance… I was also told that they were almost out of time and needed me to complete the level on my first try. No pressure, right? As I took picked up the controller I could hear whispers amongst the smiling orchestra members saying things like “that’s the accordion player, right?” as I fumbled for a good 20 seconds trying to find the start button. All in all, I got through a song in Guitar Hero while the Video Games Live orchestra played along with me, another experience I’ll never forget.

Yep...[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

I sat in the audience for almost the entire set after that, though I had to leave to make sure all merch and show preparations were made. The stage/tour manager and crew with VGL are also pretty cool folks, and it was during this portion of each day that we got to chat with them.

Tommy has some really cool guitars[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

A comical aside, when I went to use the restroom in the green room I sat down to notice the choir singing the Halo theme creeping in through speakers in the ceiling… It was a really cool feature, though sort of comical given the circumstances in which I discovered it. Awhile later we did a full band practice of Chrono Cross with the orchestra, and were amused to see that Moose was placed behind a Plexiglas wall, keeping the orchestra safe from any flying drum sticks. There was a moment during the practice where Moose sped up and received an EPIC glare from the conductor, who had everyone stop and start again. The rest of the band tried to stifle a laugh when Konami gave the genuine remark: “The man who wrote the soundtrack to the Amazing Spiderman just glared at us… What an honor!”

During dinner I decided to sit in the cafeteria, because I’m a messy eater, and met the harp player, the French horn player, and Craig Turley of the Craig Turley Orchestra, the VGL orchestra for two of the FL tour dates. You see, it’s not always the same orchestra every time you see VGL or Distant Worlds… They don’t necessarily tour with an orchestra, the production performs with a local orchestra. Mr. Turney, who I’d met by asking if he was in the orchestra, was kind enough to explain the finer points about how orchestras work. We also chatted about the sorts of shows they’ve recently played and he introduced me to Louis, the lead violinist I’d talked about at Distant Worlds. Louis was also really fun to talk with as well. It was about this time I also learned that the VGL choir was a local highschool choir. They sounded like seasoned professionals and this came as a surprise to me and the rest of the band.

After what felt like a really long (but enjoyable) time, the band and I found ourselves on the side of the stage, watching the start of the show. The winner of the pre-show costume contest was an impressive female Solid Snake. As we congratulated her, she asked for some help in opening a small plastic container. I volunteered and it wasn’t until I’d opened it, spilling its contents slightly all over my fingers that I realized (to my complete horror) that it was crazy glue… My hands, specifically my fingers, were covered in crazy glue mere minutes before we were supposed to perform… I couldn’t feel my fingertips, which are really important to pushing 1 of the 120 buttons on my accordion and I spent the next 5 minutes scraping the glue off my fingers using a brick wall, my teeth, and my nails. That was the extent of my panic, though. Once I could feel my fingers again my only concerns about the show were in making sure I was having a good time… Okay, that’s a bit of a lie. I’ll admit that I was fairly nervous about this show, probably the largest performance of my life, and making sure I sounded alright.

Moments before the glue incident...

As Tommy introduced the next song and got off the stage, he looked at us jokingly from backstage and said aloud “at least I think that’s the song they’re playing…”. His ability to be at ease had a similar effect on us and after what seemed like an eternity (it was an awesome show, we were still just a bit nervous) we were called onto the stage to play our Zelda set, essentially the songs I’d been playing since I first started playing the accordion. By the second song in our medley I was pretty comfortable with the crowd. No, I didn’t ignore them, or imagine that they simply weren’t there. That doesn’t really have a place in an “interactive” show. I didn’t imagine them naked or as stuffed animals like my childhood television shows would have me do (I lack a visual imagination). I just focused on having a good time and everything else seemed to fall into place. It was pretty magical and over faster than I could have imagined.

[Photo by Jeff Douglas!]

Emmanuel and Tommy gave us high fives as we departed the stage and shortly after the thrill wore off, the band did our traditional post-performance self-critiques of things that no one besides us would notice. We watched the rest of the set from the wings while I silently pondered why we didn’t do things like this more often. At one point, during the intermission, the fire alarm was set off and I spent awhile with members of the orchestra, pondering calmly if we would grab our gear and run if we saw fire, or if we’d just wait it out. The woman with the Cello made from 400 year old wood didn’t take any risks, and awhile later it turned out to be a false alarm. The second half of the show continued, we played another piece, the show ended, and during a Chrono Trigger/Cross Encore my band got to join the orchestra for one of the coolest performances I’ve been a part of. It was pretty awesome getting to actually perform WITH the orchestra and the bandmates could barely contain our laughter when Moose accidentally pulled out his headset on the first hit of the song. All in all we did alright and made it to the end of the song in good time.

Tommy is a RockStar
[Thanks the Orlando Weekly]

After that, Tommy, the band, and I led and the audience in a sing-along version of Still Alive. In addition to being a mind-numbingly awesome experience in and of itself, this moment had a very special significance to me. Some years ago, while my band of the same name was splitting up, our bass player at the time (not Rook) told me that Random Encounter was talentless, hopeless, that we would never amount to anything, that I personally would never amount to anything after the band broke up, and that I would never perform Still Alive in front of people again. As I looked out into a sea of cell phones (the modern lighter at rock shows), 3DS’s, and PSP’s I felt pretty good about myself.

Thanks Orlando Weekly

Immediately after the “Surpassed All Expectations” Achievement was unlocked (inside my head) we cleared our gear off the stage, took part in our first Meet and Greet, met some really cool people, and departed for a rumored after party. All in all that day, I’d met 5 accordionists under the age of 70 (a personal record): Emmanuel the conductor, one of the string players in the orchestra, and 3 people from the audience that we got to talk to at the Meet and Greet. On our walk to the after party a homeless-looking guy with a distinct swagger tried talking to Konami, who ignored him and walked by. Moose, being slower than the rest of us due to the 35 pounds of metal in his legs, wasn’t able to run by him as fast. The guy said something like “There’s a bunch of dangerous mo’ fo’s in this part of town” and flashed a knife at Moose, who completely ignored him and kept walking. I imagine that the would-be mugger simply thought he’d imagined mugging us, because we didn’t acknowledge him, and decided to leave us well enough alone. Moose tells a different story though, about how the guy was probably just trying to sell us his knife in misquote from the original Zelda’s line: “It’s dangerous to go alone.”

Awhile later we drove to the home of two of our super-fans, who happen to be married to each other, and enjoyed their great hospitality (and home cooked breakfast!!!) in the city of Davie, FL… Which we discovered the next morning seems to be stuck in the 80’s because while we drove by Davie Dr. in Davie, FL we witnessed no less than 5 separate people all sporting clothing and haircuts clearly indicative of an 80’s adventure film.

We arrived at the next venue, the Kravis Center in West Palm beach, by 1pm the following day, did our sound check, and started to understand the routine of VGL a bit more. Better yet, we seemed to be acclimating to it. Moose played Rock Band this time (getting a 99% success rate, only missing the last note), and we chatted with elements of the Santaluces Choir after the rehearsal. They were sort of quiet and reclusive at first, but after we offered them all free CD’s (because they are some seriously talented kids we are honored to have performed with) all thoughts of us as being an unapproachable and reclusive band were obliterated. Those kids are definitely going places in life.

View from the stage of the Kravis Center

The second performance night was similar to the first, though the entire band seemed to be in agreement that there was significantly less stage fright this time around. It was no more terrifying than a smaller performance in front of our friends and our only fears revolved around falling out of time with the rest of the orchestra, which didn’t happen either night. We played, we watched, we cleared off the stage, we meet and greeted, we drove to Orlando, and passed out at Moose’s home.

Rook looking awesome
[Thanks Orlando Weekly]

Our homecoming show, the Hard Rock Live in Orlando, was a bit different. The composer to the God of War series was present and involved in the show, rocking two conducting sticks (similarly to how Kratos wields two swords), we were performing with a new orchestra/choir, and many of our fans were at this show. It was pretty awesome getting to share the full VGL experience with our extended band-family and friends and it was also pretty awesome to meet the hundreds of people who’ never heard of us before who were from our hometown.

The whole experience with Video Games Live was pretty magical. It arguably changed my life, shifted my focus, and I hope that those who read this will understand the sincerity in these words. Awhile ago I’d lost sight of what was important to me and nearly gave up. Now and for the rest of my life I’ll have the memories of this weekend to remind and inspire me when I’m in such a lull. To each and every person who made this possible, to each and every person who came out to show your support, and to each and every person who showed up to have fun: Thank you for an unforgettable experience.

-Careless (RE)

Game Review - Banjo Kazooie: 15 years later...

Back in 1998 I went on a road trip to Montana with my trusty giant (20 pound) 8'' screen TV, an N64, and a copy of Banjo Kazooie I was borrowing from a friend. During one of the more exciting journeys of my childhood I beat what I remember as being one of the best 3D adventure games ever made! If the save files from my friends' cartridges bear (no pun intended) any resemblance to my own skill at gaming, it probably took between 20-40 hours to get through the game with a 100% completion rate, completely unassisted by strategy guide or the internet (which wasn't a particularly useful thing at that time for walkthroughs). I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of Banjo Kazooie ever since and this weekend, a full 15 years later, I had a chance to pick it up, plug the very same N64 (complete with an expansion pack) into a 19'' flat screen, and use the same controller I used back in the day! I was extremely curious how good the game would still be and wondered with dread if perhaps I remembered Banjo Kazooie to be more fantastic than it actually was.

Cue the opening sequence. I was immediately pulled back in time through nostalgia wormhole by this insanely quirky game. Banjo smiles and laughs as if greeting an old friend, stares straight at you and knocks on the screen, shattering the 4th wall in the opening moments. As the cheesy music picks up, the new game starts, and Tootie is kidnapped, I couldn't stop thinking how hokey but strangely enjoyable the game already was. Perhaps it might just survive the test of time after all...

Plot

The plot is about as deep as one can expect from an All Ages game. You're a big brother bear named Banjo and your little sister bear, Tootie (named such because she plays the flute) is kidnapped by a witch named Gruntilda. Gruntilda wants to steal Tootie's youthful looks so you and your bird-friend, Kazooie (who lives in your backpack) need to rescue her so this doesn't happen.

Fearsome Foes!

Gameplay/Feel

The moment I had control over Banjo and Kazooie the muscle memories from years past told me to try all sorts of jumping moves that didn't seem to work. At first I thought that perhaps I was thinking of the controls for another game but after I talked to Bottles the Mole I quickly re-discovered that you need to learn all of the various moves throughout the course of playing the game by finding mole-hills and having brief yet comical exchanges with Bottles. A few such exchanges and two stages later I found my skills rivaling the apex of my childhood. I was able beat entire levels without dying and questioned if it was just an easy game by today's standards or if perhaps I was just really good at Banjo Kazooie. A few more stages, by Mad Monster Mansion, I discovered that the game has a fairly balanced difficulty curve and found myself genuinely challenged. Rare did a good job with balancing an ever-increasing difficulty without inducing crippling and entirely unenjoyable difficulty spikes found in games like Psychonauts.

The controls of Banjo Kazooe felt alright, even by today's standards. Banjo and Kazooie a fairly responsive and easy to control for the most part but it's sometimes tough to judge exactly where you are spatially, like when you're trying to jump from one floating object to another, or when your trying to judge the correct distance for an attack against a large enemy. It's often hard to judge how close/far you are from objects and creatures when swimming, flying, or even walking in some instances and I often found myself dancing around the pickup items. I think this can be attributed to lack of shading or shadow effects, which is something that can be blamed on the game's age.

Depth Perception Issues...

The Bad

There were only three things I outright disliked in Banjo Kazooie.
Swimming underwater felt slow, clunkly, and difficult to control, especially if you're not inclined towards Y-inversion. This made underwater item pickups frustrating because even if I knew what I wanted to do and how to do it I generally couldn't because of the lack of depth perception.

Another mechanic I really disliked was shooting eggs. I found it to be extremely difficult to aim eggs (a projectile you shoot) at distances greater than point blank. This was only mildly frustrating by comparison to swimming because in the few instances where you need to shoot eggs you are only required a lucky shot or three, and egg ammunition is plentiful.

I also noticed that there were a number of seemingly difficult-to-reach but utterly useless rooms you could reach that pertained to secrets that only affect the game's sequel(!), but that otherwise had no purpose. About half of the game's levels seemed to contain such a secret rooms and I found myself aggravated at the lack of in-game explanation, and the amount of time I spent scouring those empty rooms in confusion, looking for hidden notes or puzzle pieces that just weren't there.

After playing through 15 additional years of platformers and adventure games it also felt like there should have been a ledge-climbing mechanic in Banjo Kazooie, which my brain subconsciously noticed was missing. You can jump into ledges, you can jump over ledges, and you can climb trees, but you can't attach yourself to a ledge and climb up it (or drop from it). Mario 64 (a console release title) featured this mechanic so I don't think it was a system limitation.

"Freedom"

Between the quirky but expansive level design, Mumbo Jumbo's ability to turn you into various magical "creatures", and the ability to fly gained early on in the game there really isn't much of the game that feels unexplored if you attempt a 100% completion playthrough. Before the days where games pointed you in a direction with a giant arrow, a minimap with a giant marker, and a HuD that obscured 25% of your screen, there were games like Banjo Kazooie that told you "there are 10 puzzle pieces, 100 notes, and a few Jinjo's hidden in each level. Good luck finding all that, get lost in any direction you'd like, and have fun!" There was a sense of true exploration throughout each level and I was really glad to reexperience that. It's surprisingly fresh when not 8 hours before I was playing an unnamed modern game where giant looming markers and flashing lights show you where to go on a screen obscured by HuD, or in other games where the level design is so bad that you literally need to follow the mini-map for guidance and just ignore what you actually see on the game's main screen. Banjo Kazooie inspires a sense of excitement when you're exploring the levels by not force-feeding you directions and allows you the freedom of multiple paths... which ultimately lead to the paths you didn't take but it's the illusion of freedom that this game gets right and the cheery sense of achievement you feel when you complete each level with 100% efficiency. The game also throws some silly things things at you like Gruntilda's sister, who tells you all sorts of silly facts about the witch, like the name of her band in highschool.

Kazooie eats those...

Art/Music

The art direction is toonish and despite the issues with depth perception that I mentioned earlier the game's graphics were revolutionary for its time and withstand the test of time as far as I'm concerned. They're not bad and they'd be considered stylistic if you saw them in a new release. At worst, they're about on the same level as the games Nintendo is still releasing on the 3DS.

In terms of music I feel that the soundtrack to Banjo Kazooie was well done. The arrangements are simple, a little hokey perhaps, but the songs constantly change and evolve as you're interacting with the environment. Each stage has a distinct song and within each stage exists several renditions of that song affected by your physical location within the world. Are you walking into a dark and creepy cave? The music for the level will seamlessly become a slightly more creepy version of the same song played on a digital xylophone. This feels fairly advanced for its time and is still an example of what solid interactive audio design can be.

Breaking the 4th Wall

Closing Thoughts

Banjo Kazooie has survived the test of time and in my opinion will always be a solid classic that future gamers can enjoy and seasoned ones can return to time and time again. I can see myself returning to play it in the future, which is rare, though I still have yet to try out the sequel: Banjo Tooie.

Game Review: Far Cry 3: The Co-Op Campaign

I often subscribe to the "if you don't have anything nice to say..." mentality but when I sat down this Thanksgiving weekend with my friend Keegan to play coop video games for the few days of free time we both had this year (while recovering from the flu) we had no reason to suspect that we were in for anything but good times. We blew through the coop mode of the new Splinter Cell, we rocked Terrorist Hunts in a personal favorite, Rainbow 6: Vegas, and then we excitedly set up the Co Op Campaign for one of our mutually favorite games of all time, Far Cry 3. For those of you who've never played it, Far Cry 3 is an intense immersive journey of survival. It features one of the best video game villains of all time, a strong story that even Zero Punctuation gave praise to, one of the best free-roam stealth systems I've played, realistic mechanics for wildfires, terrifying and detailed wildlife, stealth-kills, and is a top-notch first person survival-shooter. Lured in by the promise of a "completely new story" and with the high expectations given to us by the main game and subsequent release of Blood Dragon we didn't expect that the co op mode could be anything but a great time.

About as deep as the plot gets

Plot: The introduction video that plays when you start the co op mode is very much in the vein of Far Cry 3, showcasing the main characters being sold out by their former employer, a ship captain known as The Captain. In short, the Captain took their money, sold the main characters to pirates, and left them high and dry. This much is learned from the video. What the Captain didn't expect the main characters to do was survive the pirate attack, get armed, team up, and cut a bloody path of carnage that would make Rambo blush. I found the introduction video to be exciting, enjoyable, and an indication of good times to come. Keegan and I seemed equally pumped and it came as a large surprise to us to find out that the video would be the most plot-intensive part of the entire game. 

Each of the six co-op missions has a plot, sort of, but the plot really doesn't seem that well thought out, executed, or relevant to the main story of "getting revenge." It sort of just felt like a bunch of pirates incidentally got between the main characters and their prey, the Captain, so the main characters decided to murder them all for laughs and go through places they didn't really need to go through to accomplish their common goal. Each of the six missions, including the last one, didn't really feel like a quest for revenge and felt more like an attempt at finding less than creative ways to murder pirates on an island. Even the last mission where you actually get a go at the Captain (who is entirely absent throughout the other missions) didn't feel fulfilling in the least, and though I won't spoil the ending for you, I'll say that I felt cheated of any true resolution. The "interesting" characters that you get to play as never get developed further than skin deep and you shouldn't expect any insight into their lives or back stories beyond what you can find on the Far Cry 3 Wiki.

As for the four main characters you play as [left to right]: 

Callum: the Scottish thug. I honestly couldn't understand anything he said except the curse words and found him useful only as comic relief. He lacked any sort of real likability and I had no idea what his personal goals were or why he was even working with the other characters. It seems like he would honestly just ditch them at first opportunity and I was surprised that he was playable after the first mission.

Leonard: the crooked cop. I found this sexist thug to be devoid of any value or interest whatsoever. He's greedy, selfish, and while he delivers one of the best lines in the game in the final act I felt no progression or motivation for him beyond "I can't wait to kill this guy and be rich," which was boring.

Mikhail: the Russian hitman. Mikhail was the most interesting character in the Co Op because he had things the other characters all seemed to lack... Relatability and a conscience. Mikhail is ex-mob with a wife and daughter who just wants to start a new life. Sadly beyond the introduction you really don't hear anything more about his life.

Tisha: the ex-soldier. On the surface, Tisha seems like she's going to be relatable like Mikhail, a soldier with a tough upbringing who left the Marines for doing the right thing in a bad situation. However, where Mikhail quietly kills his prey and seems to get no real enjoyment out of the things he has to do to get off the island Tisha seems to relish in the violence and goes from noble Marine martyr to bloodthirsty thug. I felt like this was one of the biggest areas where the creative team really dropped the ball.

Without spoiling the "story" there is also a 5th character, one you don't play as who acts as your guide to the island. I found this character to be one dimensional, stupid, slow, greedy, and entirely unhelpful. There were a few times (like when he ran me over with a truck on accident or when he decided the best course of action would be to drive straight through the enemy encampment at 5 miles per hour) that I questioned if he was really on our side and why he wasn't cut from the game entirely.

The most exciting moment in the entire game...
Is in the first mission.

"Freedom/Gameplay": For a franchise known for allowing a player to accomplish a given task a dozen different ways and allowing players to explore acres of open-world environment the coop mode can only be described as a FF XIII style hallway from which you cannot possibly avoid conflict with every enemy on the map. Keegan and I are both traditionally stealth shooters, running through the tall grass with silenced scoped rifles, pistols, and a knife and killing only as many enemies as are required to accomplish a given task, if any at all. Given the fact that you're not allowed to walk more than a few paces off the main road for cover (you lose if you get caught "leaving the map" kind of like playing Marco Polo in a narrow swimming pool), the fact that you're not allowed to leave an area until you kill every person in that area (literally), this tactic is entirely nonviable. They also reduced the effectiveness of close combat attacks, which you can normally chain in FC3 and do a number of fairly awesome things with.

You start each level by selecting one of four basic layouts: Silent, Assault, Close-Assault, and Sniper, and beyond the ability to pick up the weapons of dead enemies (mostly AKs or weapons from other layouts), you're entirely unable to evolve or adapt your loadout. This is particularly bothersome when you encounter the armored bad guys who can take 3 sniper rifle shots to the head, 4 frag grenades, an unlimited supply of normal gunfire to anywhere but the head, and are all but immune to rocket launchers (which earn the "most useless" award for FC3 Coop) and are immune to futile close combat attacks. None of the guns except for the sniper rifle come with a scope either, and only two classes can use grenades. 

There are basically 4 enemy types: Gunners, molitov throwers, snipers, and men armed with machetes. They recycle the same few models throughout, throw dozens of each at you for each of the 6 levels with an occasional dog or armored heavy gunner/flamethrower, and that describes every enemy in the co op... All of them... No joke... While the mechanics of the game were mostly fluid, matching FC3, the removal of character evolution, stealth, scopes, and multiple ways to accomplish a task were infuriating. The worst moment for us was when we were told to "sneak through a base", we snuck through the base without being spotted, and then were told we needed to kill everyone in the base to proceed through the secret tunnel because Callum just felt like killing everyone. This is the sort of BS the game throws at you.

The joke here is that there are no animals in the Co Op,
so this scene isn't a part of the game...

Feel: The FC3 Coop is clunky and extremely awkward. By mission 4, the only reason we were still playing was so we could see if there was any sort of triumph felt in finally killing the Captain, whom the main characters talked about but whom we never saw. The missions felt like they weren't all that well thought through as the general idea for each mission was "sneak" into this area by killing everyone on the way there, push a button that operates something noisy, and defend the spot for a few minutes while the noisy thing happens. Of course there was the occasional mission of "pick up this object that suddenly causes enemies to spawn all around you and bring it across the map by walking down the middle of the road." Between the drudge of shoot-em-up missions were moments of relief akin to mini-games where you and your friends compete to see who can shoot more people with a sniper rifle, who can drive a jet ski better, or who can drive a jeep better. They felt awkward but were preferable over playing through another shoot-em-up mission that would have filled the space.

The FC3 Coop was incredibly glitchy. 

Even though we only played through it once, here's an example of what we had to endure to complete it:

The enemy spawning was abysmal and I'd often watch enemies appear feet in front of me, just in time to murder me with a 1 hit kill machete to the face.

After each checkpoint, our guns wouldn't reload.

The guns often glitched and vanished from thin air, making it look like we were only holding a barrel.

The textures and lighting as we went indoors and outdoors would often clash, get confused, and reverse on us, giving us a dark cave suddenly lit with brighter than day lighting.

The truck we had to escort often would drive too slow, too fast (at one point running me over), or just stopped altogether, forcing us to restart the mission.

Enemies we'd kill would often continue talking or shooting guns during the closing cinemas to each mission, so we couldn't hear the scarce dialogue of the main characters.

A key zip-line ceased to be for my character, forcing me to fall 30 feet to my death on jagged rocks from which I could not be rescued. We had to use the zipline on the right after restarting from the checkpoint, which was about 10 minutes of gameplay back.

Art: This is actually the area I have much praise for the FC3 coop. While it's a glitch hallway style shooter it had some really solid visual character design. The main team felt unique visually, and while they lacked depth they looked cool and had good voice acting. For the most part the visuals in game matched the quality of FC 3, which is great, though for some reason the water seemed to be visually lacking during one of the mini games (perhaps just another glitch?). The music was unmemorable for the most part which I feel is a negative in a game that linear, and the audio design failed in that the world didn't feel truly like it was a part of the outdoors. There was also no visual or audio cue when you killed someone unless it was a Kill-Assist, which made progression frustrating... Correction, there is an audio cue, but it's often muffled by, and seems like it's part of the games soundtrack.

Closing Thoughts: They took out stealth, exploration, wildlife, wildfire, wind, close combat, the bow, arrows, scopes, and the plot. Shy of the name and tropical setting it didn't really feel very much like a Far Cry game at all. It was unenjoyable to play, unfilling to complete, and more glitchy than I thought to expect from such a large franchise. While it started off a great concept with an intriguing introduction video I can't recommend this game to anyone except truly hardcore fans of coop shooters devoid of plot or completionist fanatics of the Far Cry franchise.

Disclaimer: I understand that it's a huge undertaking to make a video game. I understand that I don't have any of the talents required to make a video game like Far Cry 3. I understand that rough timelines, budget cuts, and general corporate griminess can lead to a great idea turning into something less than stellar. I mean no disrespect towards the makers of this game with my review, nor do I hold any of them responsible for the problems I have with it as it very well could have been the product of corporate resource mismanagement, clashing ideas at the highest level (even a stellar team can't make conflicting ideas from their bosses into something good), or some other unknowable constrictions placed on the creative team.