RARE
The Jitty has been exceptionally fortunate to speak to Gregg Mayles, Creative Director, of Leicestershire based developer Rare. Our gaming fans were keen to ask their questions, and here 10 of them have been answered indepth and candidly.
1) What inspired the creation of monkeys for the use of Donkey Kong? (From Lu-Luvver)
Donkey Kong was a character created at Nintendo in 1981 by Shigeru Miyamoto. Miyamoto is widely regarded as the best games designer that the industry has produced and this was his first game. Donkey Kong was a coin-operated machine for amusement arcades and featured an Italian plumber whose girlfriend was kidnapped by a big ape. The Italian plumber was Mario and the ape obviously Donkey Kong, but I believe the reason why an ape was chosen as the bad guy was because it was big and threatening. Donkey Kong starred in several games in the early to mid 80's but then seemingly took early retirement.
In 1992 Nintendo approached Rare and asked us if we could create them a brand new cutting edge game using the Donkey Kong character. The game we made was Donkey Kong Country for the Super Nintendo console and Donkey Kong has been featuring in games on a regular basis ever since.
2) Is there going to be a new Battletoads game any time in the future? (From Fire Feure)
This is a question that we get asked all the time, along with people wanting a new Killer Instinct game! Rare only creates new games based on existing characters if we can offer the players something new. There is no point making new games with old characters just for the sake of it, despite how fondly people remember the originals. The Battletoads series of games were great in their time and I personally would love to see a new game as I worked on several of them. There will have been a gap of 8 years when Rare releases its next Banjo game in 2008, and there was a gap of over 15 years between games featuring our characters called Sabreman and Sabrewulf. So who knows? It's certainly something we would never rule out.
3) How did Battletoads & Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team come about? (From Fire Feure)
A company called Tradewest owned the intellectual rights to both the Battletoads and the Dragons. Both sets of characters had common elements (i.e. they fight) so an idea was proposed that would combine their modern day and futuristic worlds together, although the final game was based in futurist worlds as this gave us far more scope for creativity. Throughout development we were tempted to make the Rare-created Battletoads better than the Dragons by giving them cooler abilities, but I think they all ended up pretty even. Although we did have the odd fight between the two…
4) Do you think the re-release of classic titles for modern systems is a good idea? (From Kuang)
I have mixed feeling about this. On one hand it gives older players a chance to relive their youth and also allows younger players to learn about the history of games, but on the other hand some of these games do not stand the test of time well and also mean game developers are not trying new ideas. Without new ideas the games industry will stagnate. Games such as Space Invaders and Pacman will always have an irresistible draw, but many of the others are best left as you remember them (if you are old enough!) as they all too often feel monotonous compared with the best of today's games and do not hold your attention like they did in their heyday. Just my opinion of course and I'm sure many retro-gamers disagree!
5) If there were no technological, financial or time constraints, what would be your dream game project? (From Kuang)
You may think this is an odd thing to say, but having constraints isn't always a bad thing. It focuses your efforts and makes you think. If I had unlimited time and funds I think the game would never get finished as there would always be something I wanted to include! Many great games have been created on technology that isn't cutting edge, where budgets weren't massive and time periods were short. Having said that, I think my dream game would involve pirates. Don't ask me why, but it would!
6) In Donkey Kong Country for the SNES I remember the ranking screen with cheeky hints implying other platforming heroes were complete rubbish, also the characters frequently broke the fourth wall of gaming by reference to the fact it was a game. What influences Rare to be such a quirky and unique development company?
(From Dantheman)
Although the individual humour in games comes from the people that work on them (I have to admit that I was responsible for the two examples you mentioned) I think our country as a whole exhibits similar quirks and uniqueness. The British sense of humour is very dry and sarcastic. We are not afraid to make fun of ourselves as well as others, something that is not common elsewhere in the world. We also has a long history of producing very unique and off the wall comedians and entertainers. We have grown up with this and I think contributes to making Rare the UK equivalent in the video game industry. You may have also noticed that we have a tradition of including in jokes and references to other Rare games within our games.
7) How do you feel about the potential of games on the Wii, with the multitude of party games and very few "hardcore games" If you had the opportunity to develop for Wii, which aspects would you look forward to the most? (From Dantheman)
I think the potential is huge, but maybe not for gamers wanting the kind of hardcore games they can find on other systems. The appeal of the Wii is its simplicity and the way the player interacts with the game. Creating hardcore games on the Wii could be difficult because hardcore gamers often favour complexity over simplicity. They want cutting edge graphics and gameplay mechanics that they can spend hours learning and mastering. Have you considered that Nintendo may have no intention of appealing to hardcore gamers? The potential audience for something that everyone can play is far greater than the audience for something that only really skilled people can play. Look at the film industry today, the most successful movies tend to be the ones that anyone can watch. They are not the 18 rated movies or ones that have complex storylines that are difficult to follow. The games industry is still maturing and expanding, but if it is to become an accepted mainstream form of entertainment it has to be accessible to everyone. The Wii is a big step in that direction.
If I had a chance to develop for the Wii I would look at creating something that took full advantage of what its controller can offer. Too many Wii games only use its controller as a substitute for something that could be done with a conventional controller. The first game to come out for the Wii, Wii Sports, has made by far the best use of the controller, and for me it is a little disappointing that all the games since have not been as good in this respect.
8) Do you have any plans to make any more games in the Perfect dark series? (From Richiebaby)
As I mentioned before, Rare only wants to create sequels if we feel we can offer players something new. The shooting game genre is currently extremely crowded and there are a lot of games that look very similar. To stand out you either have to do something technically brilliant (which only lasts as long as it takes for the next technically superior thing to come along) or offer a different playing experience. In my opinion the shooting game genre has become a little stale and needs a different approach rather than the ever constant desire for realism. Chasing realism is great until you actually get there – as where do you go from there? If Rare were to do another Perfect Dark I would hope that we could find a new direction that would help evolve the genre.
9) Many of your games receive a cult status regardless of marketing, why do you think this is? (From Loki)
I think you as the customer might be better placed to answer this! Why do people buy our games and why are we honoured with groups of (often extremely) dedicated fans? I would like to think it’s a combination of trying to create the best games we possibly can whilst trying not to take ourselves too seriously. We are in the entertainment business and we are here to entertain. To achieve cult status I think you either have to do something that stands out as a landmark or do something that is different to anything else out there - whether it is a different look, a different style of game or a different way of approaching an existing style of game. Rare games such as Donkey Kong Country and Goldeneye could be seen as landmarks, whereas our latest game on the Xbox 360, Viva Pinata, is certainly completely different to anything else. Our new Banjo game due out next year on Xbox 360 is again attempting to offer something different in the platform/adventure game genre. Will it achieve a cult status? I hope so.
10) Being an older gamer and having had a C64/ZX Spectrum, are we ever likely to see such classics as Sabrewulf on the PC? Now that 3D is so accessible is isometric gaming dead? (From Jadewolf)
Sabrewulf on the PC is unlikely. Although dedicated fans remember the games fondly, in reality the market for such games today is very small. Having said that, we would never rule out our old games making a reappearance and Sabrewulf was actually released as a brand new game on the Game Boy Advance in 2004.
Although revolutionary at the time, isometric gaming was an early form of 3D in the same way that turning a handle was an early way of starting a car. To make a regressive step back to something that has long since been superseded doesn’t happen very often, so I don’t think you’ll be seeing any major games using an isometric viewpoint in the future.
The Jitty would like to thank Gregg for his time in answering our questions, and we would also like to wish Rare every success in the future too!!
