8Bit/Digi

Rare Replay is not another collection of games rolled into one bundle but an opportunity to examine the history of gaming as seen through the eyes of one game studio.

Back in the day, Rare was an icon well known for hit titles like Battletoads, Banjo-Kazooi, Perfect Dark and Conker’s Bad Fur Day. While the studio has not produced anything memorable in resent years, this collection will take old school gamers back to their childhood while a new generation of gamers are introduced to a classical era in gaming.

Yes; memorable likes like Banjo-Kazooi, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini and Conker’s Bad Fur Day are part of the collection but so are other hits like Battletoads, Blast Corps and Killer Instinct Gold. The collection also includes resent titles like Jetpac Refuelled and Viva Piñata.

Best of all, the collection is not just limited to 30 games but also features a series of mini-games that allow gamers to explore cancelled titles and special project of the time. Several of the games from the SNES era have also been given a “rewind” feature for players to go back and correct their mistakes.

While the collection is diverse, gamers are more likely to stick with familiar titles like Perfect Dark or Banjo-Kazooi along with Conker’s Bad Fur Day and Jet Force Gemini. Yet gamers should give the entire collection a try just in-case they find a title they missed from back in the day.

Be warned that this is a collection of almost every game Rare has made and that will include a few disappointing titles, Perfect Dark Zero being the most notable. On the bright side one could have a “bad video game night” with a few friends.

The biggest disappointment is the absence of the Donkey Kong Country series and GoldenEye 007 due to copyright issues. The absence of Donkey Kong is obvious since Nintendo owns the rights, the issue with GoldenEye 007 is because multiple groups hold the copyright and in the past they have failed to come to an agreement regarding its distribution.

However titles like Perfect Dark and Banjo-Kazooi should make up for the absence of these Nintendo classics.

Once upon a time, Rare was a respected studio well known for creating some of the most memorable titles of the 90’s. Xbox gamers now have the opportunity to either go back to the past and see how good games were or relive their childhood with Rare Replay.

Final Score: 9/10

Disclaimer: The game used for this review was played at a friends house for 20 hours. 

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