What do you mean?

To be fair, I doubt Rare has most of the same employees of so many years ago.

I am still interested in what Rare is making, but life has always taught me to follow the artist, not the company nine times out of ten because they are the true soul of the company (unless the company is artistic themselves)

Take a look at the Mighty no9, which is the Spiritual successor to Mega Man. Since Capcom is such an incompetent company they lost a potentially great game that could've been Mega Man instead of a spiritual successor. The artist is always more creative than the company. The company just tells that artist to make something and gives them a budget and either they pitch the idea to the company or the company pitches the idea to them (Its generally better when the artist and marketing team get together and then pitch the idea). When the true minds leave they tend to come up with interesting things or even a better version of the same thing. Take Bayonetta for instance. Once Hideki Kamiya left Capcom he started working on Bayonetta after the first DMC which is even better than DMC. These companies have little to no creativity and they need every creative mind they can get. All they have are money and resources and thats what artists tends to need.

The offshoot memebers of the Fable Team who recently left Microsoft/Lionhead are working on a new game and it seems like a fun indie game.

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/new-stealth-game-ex-lionhead-devs-features-graphical-interface-ages/

Wherever key members go to develop, I tend to follow. My biggest disappointment with Microsofts handling of Rare is the best Rare game to come out ever was Killer Instinct and it was built by two outside developers (one of which is known for Street Fighter 3).

Well, Bungie had to purchase their freedom, but I do agree that it was nice for MS to allow them to go away if that's what they wanted, given that it was their primary team, Turn 10 aside.

Using this logic, it kinda shocks me that Kinect games were Rare's goal all this time, without MS's pressure behind them. Shocker, considering the quality of most of those.

Playtonics are not the whole Rareware of 90's till mid 2000's.

The problem of Rare was in creative direction. The Stampers left and Rare tried to remain the same in a changing industry.

Most of the Rare talent went to other places before Microsoft acquired them. So rare was already a shadow of its former shelf before purchase. And they did made a game that sold well in kinect. MS gave them freedom. There is no doubt about it.

I understand. I am excited to see what non-Kinect games Rare will be making, but I am more excited for the devs that aren't owned and move on to newer projects. I don't even know what to say about Conker right now and as for Battletoads...hopefully they get more than just one mission in Shovel Knight. I cannot believe E3 is less than three months from now. Whatever they will put out i'll check it out and hopefully buy. We'll see.

Yeah, with the majority of the core team off in other places (like Free Radical... *sheds tear*), you could see a shift in how the studio approached games.

I think there's such a big frustration with Rare because they have some of the most beloved and cherished gaming IPs out there, but they refuse to use them in a significant way. And even when they do use them, they don't apply them to their natural gaming direction. Like Banjo turning into some hybrid vehicle creation platformer, or Conker being an add-on for Project Spark. As great as they can be, fans are still wanting the core experience, the experience of playing a game like the ones they fell in love with before.

I am so ready to be proven wrong by Rare. But until then, call me cautious.

But call me very optimistic for project Ukulele. Excite!!!

I look forward to seeing what Rare puts out. Hope we get a good showing from them at Microsoft's E3 conference.

Truth. Microsoft was smart to get outside devs to make Killer Instinct. Best Rare IP reboot since...well the N64.