The Rise and Fall of Rare
In 1982, after a succesful career in arcade game development, two brothers called Tim and Chris Stamper opened a Game Development company called Ashby Computers and Graphics Ltd and started making games for several of the 8-bit systems of the time - such as the ZX Spectrum and Commodore 64; some of these games were: Blackwyche, Jetpac, Knight Lore and Sabre Wulf.
The name they published these games under was "Ultimate: Play the Game".
Ultimate later became the Rare company we know and once loved and in 1995 they became a 2nd-party developer for Nintendo after a 49% share of the company was bought by Nintendo.
They hit the big time after Donkey Kong Country was released. An amazing use of Silicon Graphics workstations (the same computers used to make the graphics seen in films like Terminator 2!), helped Rare to make 3D incarnations of DK and the crew then animate them to make 2D equivalents that the SNES could handle without the need for expansion like Starfox required.
Rare's reign kept growing with 2 sequels to Donkey Kong Country as well as other amazing games like Banjo Kazooie, Blast Corps, Diddy Kong Racing, Goldeneye, Killer Instinct, Perfect Dark and their final game on a Nintendo system - Starfox Adventures.
In 1998 after development of Perfect Dark began, a few of Rare's employees left the company to do their own thing.. a few banded together and formed Free Radical who made the Timesplitters games and the recently released Haze.
The other company that formed is called Zoonami, but all that's come of that in the years since is Zendoku and Go! Puzzle, woot!
After Nintendo tired of Rare's lengthy development times and lack of total games produced the Stamper brothers sold off their 51% share of Rare to Microsoft in 2002, then Nintendo sold their 49% share for an overall total of $377 Million Dollars!
Rare's first delve into Xbox territory in 2003 - Grabbed by the Ghoulies - wasn't well received and bore quite a resemblance to Nintendo's Luigi's Mansion.
Two years later they released Conker: Live & Reloaded, which included an updated version of the N64 game, but it was mostly about the online multiplayer that helped it to sell reasonably well.
2005 also saw the release of Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo: Elements of Power - both games were originally destined for Nintendo's Gamecube but were shalved after the sell to Microsoft.
On the 2nd of January 2007, the brothers who set up the company 25 years before left Rare to "pursue other opportunities".. what these opportunites were has not been told since, but I was sad to hear this news at the time.
And sadly, 2 months ago on May 18th 2008 Grant Kirkhope resigned and left Rare after completing his work on the Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts soundtrack.
Grant helped to bring us the amazing music in such games as Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64, GoldenEye 007 and Perfect Dark among others.. I hope he finds a nice new home elsewhere and continues to make amazing game tunes for us.
What does the future of Rare hold for us that are holding on for a miracle?
At the moment not a damn lot to be honest.. BK:N&B looks pants.. it's meant to be a platform game for fox sake.. I don't wanna make vehicles to get me higher up a hill, I wanna learn BK skills! Pleh!
Another Viva Pinate plus a DS port? Woop de doo!
On a bright side they have sold 100 Million games now
Now.. like many people, my love of Rare began in the Donkey Kong Country era, although I had played some of their earlier work before I knew them for the coolness they were - anyone played RC Pro AM? Niice
Once Rare weren't Nintenboys no more I knew my love for them would fade, and it did.. so did most other peoples.. and it's a damn shame!!
When I owned a Nintendo 64 I had about a dozen games for it, and at least 8 of them were Rare games! rare rocked, and they're British! Much love..
RIP Rare, thanks for the wonderful memories guys!
Peace out!
Blog Entry: The Rise and Fall of Rare
(so much past-tense coming outta my mouth about those guys, sad)
PDZ is ok, but not enough for me to have completed it like PD 