The long awaited Banjo-Kazooie from Rare and Nintendo arrived in our offices this morning. We wasted no time and played for the better half of the day.

　　With great sound effects, music, and bright colorful graphics, the game has an overwhelming cartoon feel to it (a good cartoon - think Hanna Barbara).

　　The gist of the story is that an evil witch by the name of Grunty has taken Banjo's sister Tooty. The evil witch has a machine that will steal Tooty's youth, which the witch can appropriate for herself. Naturally, Banjo doesn't want this to happen, so he straps on his backpack with his pal Kazooie inside and heads out to put a stop to Grunty's plan.

　　The first part of the game is set up to teach players some basic moves that Banjo and Kazooie can perform: like jumping higher by getting Kazooie to flap his wings when in the air; destroying enemies using the beak dash - an attack that allows players to destroy enemies by ramming them with Kazooie's beak; and getting Kazooie to shoot eggs out of his beak. There's a ton of other stuff to learn as well.

　　The basic idea in Banjo-Kazooie is the same as in Mario: run around a huge 3D environment looking for stuff. In Mario you wanted stars, in Banjo you want Jiggys (pieces to a jigsaw puzzle). The Jiggys are found or earned in much the same way as the stars were collected in Mario. Players have to follow instructions given from characters they meet as to where to go and what to do. Completing a task usually turns up a Jiggy.

　　After playing the game for the past few hours, it's apparent that Banjo-Kazooie - while resembling Mario 64 in many ways - has a personality all its own. I can't wait to get further in the game to see what else it has.

　　-Ryan Mac DonaldThe first thing I noticed after playing Banjo-Kazooie for an hour was that it had a level of depth that was missing from Mario 64. You have many more moves than Mario ever had, and the levels are a bit bigger. Also, the game is a bit more seamless than Mario was. The line between the outworld and the levels themselves has blurred even more.

　　The game may be a little too much like Mario 64 in some cases (jigsaw puzzle pieces have replaced stars, notes replace coins, etc.), but the game seems pretty solid so far.

　　Look for our upcoming review for the full story.

　　Expect a full videogames.com review in a couple of weeks.

　　-Jeff Gerstman