RARE without Nintendo is not what it was to be....

[Khuutra]

ChichiriMuyo said:

Khuutra said:

ChichiriMuyo said:
Rare went bad long before MS bought them out. A good chunk of people left in 97, them more left in 98-99 and formed Free Radical.

Say what you will, but 1997-2001 (or 2000, I forget when Conker's Bad Fur Day came out) is often treated as a golden period for them. granted, a lot of that is probably nostalgia from people who cut their eye teeth on the N64, but... well, Conker was awesome anyway.

 

But most off those games were pretty well into development by the time those staff losses occured.  PD, for example, was well on its way by the time some of its key staff members left to create Free Radical.  Banjo Tooie was a sequel, meaning less need for original work, and it was only a month behind PD.  2001 sees CBFD, but it seems to me as if that game was in development forever before finally being released, and it was only 5 months behind BT itself.  Those golden years were just the tail-end effect of those staff members and the impact they had early in each of those games' dev cycle.  After that, they fell apart fast.

Well, I can't really argue with that.