Seriously, Rare is about the last company you should bad-mouth given their tireless streak of innovation, outstanding visual presentations, fantastic imaginative worlds and very solid gameplay. There is no company comparable to the Rare of today. It is very hard to make unique, stylized fantasy environments nowadays. Most companies don't even bother with such tasks yet Rare keeps on trying to make those type of games.
Kameo has a wonderful fantasy setting that shows the Joyous awe and wonder of being in a fictitious realm. In this sense it touches on the essence of what it is to play a video game. The characters have wonderful characteristics and a creative design. Attempting the more challenging goals in the battlegrounds is fun and has depth, but chances are it won't be a huge barrel of fun, unfortunately.
Perfect Dark Zero is far superior to Perfect Dark, but only once you start tackling it on perfect agent difficulty or higher. That's when all of the gameplay mechanics fall into place and you get to experience a huge leap from the retro shooting format of Perfect Dark. On the flipside playing through the game on agent or secret agent is hugely disappointing mainly because I believe it is a nightmare to hit anything. I believe they needed two types of modes for the aiming: retro and realistic, and the various challenges associated with each. Granted, the AI can be disappointing.
The story, while bad, is made up for in the presentation. Joanna Dark is one of the best characters in a game and certainly one of the best female characters in a game. The stylized visuals help bring out a number of qualities that show what it is to be human. For example, I love how Joanna’s spirit is shown as unblemished despite an increasingly dark, corrupt world. The music brilliantly mirrors the exoticness and lethality of being a highly talented marksman. In many ways, no other shooter is comparable to Perfect Dark Zero.
Viva Piñata, again, is a brilliant sim / building game with adorable characters called Piñata and beautiful art and visuals. I have rarely seen a game where you can get so attached to an artificial character within a game. The whole concept of Viva Pinata revolves around this very idea: the player will love the Pinata that they manage to get.
The games are not flawless, I understand that, but the caliber is set very high by Rare and I respect them immensely.
