Birds, bears, nuts & bolts

Neill says there is a perception that Nuts & Bolts is "a racing game with Banjo tagged on, but it's not".

"It's not at all. It's very much a Banjo game. A lot of the progression is the same, the concept of Jiggies, the concept of competing against Grunty, fighting against her in boss fights. All that stuff remains, plus collecting elements, platforming elements in Shadow Town, that's still all there."

Screen Play spent 30 minutes with Neill and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts at the recent Games Convention in Leipzig, with a focus on how building vehicles and winning challenges contributes to you progressing through the levels.

The game's hub world is called Showdown town. Progression is controlled by doors which teleport you to game worlds where you can compete in challenges to win the game's distinctive jigsaw pieces known as Jiggies. Naturally, the more Jiggies you win, the more doors around town you can open.

Access around town is also limited by your "Shopping Cart" vehicle. At the start, it cannot get past obstacles like steep slopes, but as you progress you can update the cart with new abilities such as high-grip tyres or pontoon-style floats that allow you to get further afield or across water.

A character called Log (Lord of Games) is central to the storyline. He claims to have created every video game known to man and has established the ultimate showdown to see who gets the deeds to Spiral Mountain, creating artificial worlds for players to compete inside spherical game globes.

It's in Showdown Town where players will experience most of the traditional platforming elements in the game, including tight ropes, ladders, jumping, exploration and collecting components from within crates for use in the garage to build better vehicles.

But platforming is not the main component of the game - most time will be spent building unique vehicles in order to tackle the various challenges on offer.

Vehicles play key role in all levels. You can walk around on foot, but there's not much point as the vehicles are faster and more fun.

The "Jiggosessum" is a typical example of a simple stage: an arena in which players can compete in a long-jump challenge off a ski ramp.

Once launched off the jump you lose control of your vehicle, so you need an aerodynamic design for best results, or something that can get plenty of momentum.

Mumbo's Garage is where all the work gets done creating various cars, boats, planes and non-descript madcap constructions. There are over 100 different components, including body blocks, seats, wheels, gadgets and weapons.

The editor is simple to use but powerful, letting you build almost anything you like. The game uses Havoc physics and the vehicles react how you would expect: changing the weight and engine power has the appropriate consequences.

Another stage was demonstrated with a challenge featuring dominoes to knock over. Until recently, the challenge did not have a satisfactory solution.

The idea is to knock over as many as possible with a single strike, and Neill showed a crazy ship purpose-built for the task designed by one of the team last week, before making some simple tweaks to its design while in the midst of the challenge itself.

The crazy yet ingenious vehicle highlights that Nuts & Bolts might lack LittleBigPlanet's scope, but the game clearly has the same pioneering spirit in harnessing player creativity.

Many players will enjoy replaying the challenges over and over, tweaking their vehicles to improve their scores, and players can compare their results with online leaderboards.

The Top 20 scores will feature replays to download and watch so you can learn from their design expertise.

In addition to collecting components, the game seems to feature plenty of the typical trudging around searching and collecting items like notes and Jiggies, including fiddling with dispensers and door mechanisms.

It's only during this part of the demonstration that Screen Play shuffles uncomfortably in my seat - unfortunately, it looks like a cynical exercise to artificially extend the game's playtime - very strange considering the challenges seem to provide so much replay appeal, making padding unnecessary.

There is also plenty of multiplayer action to keep players busy, including eight-player online tussles. The 28 different multiplayer modes include races, Sumo wrestling, various sports such as football, polo and basketball, and even egg-and-spoon competitions.

Players can also send blueprints of vehicle designs to their online friends to share the vehicles they have built.

Neil is excited to see what the community comes up with.

"When we release the game there's going to be so many people creating so many cool things that we've never thought of," he enthuses.

"There are even challenges where we haven't thought of the best way of doing it but we're confident that if we release the product into the marketplace, within a week or so there will be some kid somewhere that comes up with something we never thought of. That's why the leaderboards are going to be so cool."

Neil says much of the original Banjo-Kazooie team from Rare still work at the studio, but were not interested in just making a homage to the original.

"We're trying to evolve the platform genre," he proclaims, boldly.

"In previous games you were previously offered a complex challenge but only really a linear solution - that is, you have to complete the level exactly how the designer intended. In our game we're trying to turn that on its head. We're offering fairly simple challenges but the key part of it is that the player is now in complete control over how they do it.

"In our minds, it offers much more replayability. You have a different experience each time you do the challenge. You'll want to do the challenges over and over again, not only to beat your scores but also your friends over Xbox Live. And if you're a hardcore gamer you might want to compete on the leaderboards online."

Neil is confident the eight year wait for a sequel to Banjo-Tooie will be worth it for fans.

"One of the reasons why we probably didn't release a game earlier is that we wanted to wait until we had something new. Yes, this game is different, but it is still a Banjo game at heart. We just wanted to evolve it by throwing something new out there that no-one else is doing. And obviously only on the Xbox 360 do we have the power to do all the physics and do all the construction of the vehicles and so on."

He says Rare is keen for the game to enjoy wide appeal.

"We're hoping it's going to appeal not just to old Banjo fans but also to new fans as well. And on different levels as well. If you're a young player you can use the vehicles that we provide, if you're a hardcore gamer the sky is the limit and you can build whatever you like and compete aggressively on the leaderboards."