On May 02, 2015 I helped fund a Kickstarter for Yooka-Laylee. I had learned about this new game from my brother and Ars Technica. I had remembered playing the old Banjo-Kazooie, Donkey Kong and many other games made by Rare. They were quite the epic Nintendo developer. Alas, Microsoft had bought them and they were supposed to be making games for the X-Box 360 and onward. Unfortunately, things did not pan out well and mistakes were made, and we pretty much never got any new releases from the Rare team shortly after that. But that is another story. So, I backed for a pretty big package, "EXCLUSIVE INSERT COIN T-SHIRT + PC BOXED DELUXE EDITION!" was the name of the listing. I really just wanted the physical PC copy and to help them out at more than just a few bucks. Getting a SoundTrack and a "physical retro manual and art book" are awesome bonuses, in addition to a t-shirt! The scheduled release for this game was October, 2016.
So here we are on January 14, 2017. No, I still don't have my physical copy of the game, but what I *do* have is an early-release playable demo on Steam, and a hard release date! Yooka-Laylee is scheduled to be released on April 11, 2017 for the PC, Mac, Linux, X-Box One & PS4! There were some issues with the Wii-U release, but they are working on a release for the Nintendo Switch that is coming out soon.
Being a Kickstarter supporter, I gained access to the Yooka-Laylee Toybox early access demo! I gave it a go and played it a decent amount. I am playing on a PC, so I tried to use the keybaord & mouse to get through it, but it just didn't feel right to me. I seem to prefer Keyboard/Mouse for some games like Saints Row: The Third, but it just feels more natural to use a controller for Yooka-Laylee. I have a feeling that since the team making this game has a lot of members from the original Rare team and they have been making console games for everything I remember of their games, they likely have a much more natural feel for building out controller inputs for console controllers. I get the feeling that it was designed for the game controller and then Keyboard/Mouse mappings were applied afterwards. Or I just suck at working a keyboard and mouse. Anyhow, I use a wonderful Microsoft X-Box One Controller that I have connected to my PC for such games. I have tried a few other controllers (very few) but I keep coming back to the X-Box controller. They did well with the original X-Box controller, made it great with the X-Box 360 controller, and have kept it the same since. Using a controller, it feels quite natural to play and really holds the same feel as the original Nitnendo 64 games I remember playing. Very smooth and the physics work almost exactly how you would expect.
The graphics are ... well, it is a rough demo preview that has really basic graphics. I have seen the video previews on the Playtonic Games YouTube Channel - and they look awesome! That whole cartoonish and candy look is slathered all over! But a matte look instead of the overly candy glossy look. The characters are isntantly loveable and I really like how this is looking! Classic Rare style games! I am very much looking forward to this game! I hope it is everything I am expecting it to be and more! I am also very excited to see this team of developers building new games again. I look forward to many more - I really want them to make some "Conker's Bad Fur Day" style games. That game had a great vibe that I really have not seen in any other game - a mix of the candy coated graphics and the adult themes! That really brought it together for me.
Pre-Order Yooka-Laylee now!
Amazon: X-Box One/PS4 |
PC/Linux/Mac: Steam |
DRM-Free PC/Linux/Mac: GOG
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