[Mush xx]

Having spent some time with Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts at the Gathering I went to last weekend, it's so full of things to do, to get the most out of it you would need hours of play.

It's hard to judge a game on just a few minutes play, but what I saw was very impressive.

From the fact sheet:

"The Lord of the Games (aka LOG) is tired of the petty squabbling between Banjo and the evil witch Gruntilda (aka Grunty), and has arranged a showdown to decide the rightful owner of Spiral Mountain. Claiming to have created every video game ever made, LOG has built the game worlds in which the contest’s challenges take place. Banjo must complete LOG’s challenges to win, while Grunty tries to stop him using every method her devious mind can muster.

Throughout their adventure, players create their own abilities by building vehicles for Banjo to pilot over land, sea and air. Vehicle parts, which range from simple devices such as engines and wheels to more unusual equipment such as springs and egg guns, are earned and collected throughout the game. Players use their imagination to combine parts in any order to create whatever vehicle they choose. LOG’s challenges have one goal, but players’ choice of vehicle and tactics will determine how it gets accomplished. By exploring worlds and solving puzzles, players both young and old will be rewarded with more advanced and diverse vehicle parts in their quest to defeat Grunty once and for all and lay claim to Spiral Mountain."

"Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts is a game you can do however you please", Elissa Miller of Rare explained, you can go around exploring like I did or can open up the game by creating a vehicle using the Mumbo's Motors workshop. By creating a vehicle you can then take on challenges and progress through the game. The vehicle creator is very easy to use. You unlock parts for the vehicles by finding hidden items, which then end up in your garage, and then by selecting them you can create karts, flying saucers and other vehicles. You have a wide selection of parts to choose from, body panels, engines, wheels, wings, propellers and many others. You can then finish it off by painting it and choosing a name, in fact there are over 100 parts.

The game has Xbox Live multiplayer too and you can share your designs over Xbox Live.

It also has some quite amusing dialogue to it as you go around chatting to the many different characters.

There is a demo on the marketplace, but I don't think the demo does the game justice.

Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts is out this week, 14th November.