Multiplayer Learning with Banjo-Tooie

(Games of Taste - Comments from late '12 after varied game competition.)

Banjo-Tooie Multiplayer

Image from Banjo-Kazooi Wiki.

• + Unique library of weapons to use.
• + Distinct character features to fit multiple play styles.
• - Useless melee ability.
• A fix: Decrease cool-down times in attacking while increasing the effective range of the attack.
• - Unintuitive effects from weapons.
• A fix: Define all the effects of an attack in the first pull of the trigger.
• - Clumsy controls in aiming and movement.
• A fix: Keep sensitivity of aiming at a moderate scale, while only keeping movement on one control (not both the directional pad and analog stick); don’t use inverse controls by default.
• - Level design is absent - like a cake missing something sweet.
• A fix: Make levels have high and low areas, while also placing weapons in locations that naturally draw players together.

This past weekend was another Olympic LAN party.  A few games were played, but I felt Banjo-Tooie’s multiplayer needed special mention.  As you can see by the list above, it was… unimpressive.

The game provides a unique library of weapons to use.  Mines, bombs, rockets, and machine gun rounds are all in the form of eggs shot out of a bird.  Special, right?  It is, but all for the wrong reasons.  Mines explode when placed anywhere near another mine, machine guns do zilch, and the difference between higher-damage rounds can’t be told just looking at them.

Speaking of weapons, the melee would be better if it didn’t exist.  When the melee button is hit, the in-game character goes into a dreadfully long animation to do essentially nothing.  That time makes the player a sitting-duck, readying them for cheap-shots in multiplayer matches.  Attacking hand-to-hand is a death wish.

Image from Wikipedia.

There is a fun set of familiar Banjo game characters.  Each one is either fast, average, or slow in movement.  However, the controls make every character feel like they are either antique tanks or sliding on a greased floor.  Turning to aim at an opponent is nigh futile; the prevailing strategy is to shoot like a madman in the general direction of foes.  Maybe then a hit will be landed, but it won’t make up for very touchy controls.

Finally, multiplayer levels lack a lot of what modern games take for granted.  Modern games have elevation levels, ‘safe’ and ‘prospect’ places, and flow to direct players into confrontation.  Banjo-Tooie misses these things by a mile.  To summarize, encounters are random, and players can easily get lost in the cramped depths of the multiplayer arena.

In essence, Banjo-Tooie is a game to learn from.  Being a spearhead of 3D gaming, there are both good things, and terrible things, in the game’s multiplayer design.  Good differences are present in character traits and weapons, but poor weapon instruction, excruciating controls, and no level design leave the game lacking.  May we all learn from Banjo-Tooie’s multiplayer to help make better games in the future!