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Bottles' Revenge Unlocked!

Posted by Zonk on from the n64-games-never-go-out-of-style dept.

Lochlan writes "The Rare Witch Project has done it again, this time unlocking yet another "removed" feature within the Nintendo 64 game, Banjo-Tooie. Bottles' Revenge, a feature which allows a second player to actively control enemies adds a whole new style of gameplay to the popular adventure game."

17 comments

  1. Unlocked? by gkelman · · Score: 1

    Where does it say it's an unlocked hidden feature thing? The article just says it's a cutscene, so like, just part of the normal game? Am I missing something?

    1. Re:Unlocked? by gkelman · · Score: 1

      Replying to my own post, but the bit I didn't pay enough attention to was:

      "Fiddling a few values here and there I went into Spiral Mountain and a cutscene awaited me. The camera focused on Angel Bottles.".

      I assume that cutscene isn't available if you don't "fiddle a few values".
      I blame the dark green tiny text on the black background myself.... :)

  2. Two thoughts. by Sheetrock · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I wonder how many "unfinished" features there are in released code. I've played more than a few games that had items or characters that could be unlocked with a Gameshark or similar that were leftovers, but besides the multiplayer code in GTA3 for the PC hadn't heard of anything this involved that was left in the code without being tapped.

    The second thought, of course, is about how ludicrous the concept is that hunting for or unlocking this sort of functionality would be considered illegal anywhere -- and wondering if the time is near when cheating devices like the Gameshark will be treated like flash carts are today.

    --

    Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
    -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    1. Re:Two thoughts. by numbski · · Score: 2, Informative

      How old are you by chance? You remember the whole bruhaha there was over the Game Genie for the original NES? :P

      --

      Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).

    2. Re:Two thoughts. by cgenman · · Score: 1

      There's almost always at least one. If you never have to cut features, your design was probably not very ambitious, or you had the luxury of waiting until things were perfect to ship. Sometimes a feature just unbalances, or crashes too frequently at too late a stage in development, or it just doesn't make the game better. Items and characters are also cut frequently, which is a shame but sometimes the plot changes and the character's VO doesn't fit, or the dungeon the object was integral to was pulled, or the thing unbalanced the game, etc.

      For another huge one, look up multiplayer network mode in Frequency.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
  3. Awesome by dnixon112 · · Score: 1

    This makes me want to break out my n64. Cheats and gameshark style hacks used to be all the rage for console games. Now the cheats are compiled and plastered on the net right after release and it's usually the same old crap, big heads, items, health, god mode. Nice to see some original and Rare easter eggs.

  4. Hahahahaah! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    HAHAHAAHAHAh Very Punny!

  5. The N-Files : Banjo Kazooie by RotJ · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Banjo Kazooie/Tooie series has a few other instances of where Rare decided to cancel the implementation of items and features but left them hidden in the game somewhere and accessible with Gameshark. Weaintcool.com has two articles about it.

  6. Waiting for Stop & Swap by chrispyman · · Score: 1

    I'm still waiting for them to figure out that Stop & Swap feature Rareware kept teasing us with. On the other hand, that's quite a nifty easter egg!

    1. Re:Waiting for Stop & Swap by Lochlan · · Score: 1

      Well it sort of was

  7. Unique gameplay? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I remember being able to control the ducks in Duck Hunt (for the good ol' NES) with the second controller.

    1. Re:Unique gameplay? by urbaer · · Score: 1

      Player 2 controlling the ducks in Duck Hunt was even better if the person with the gun didn't know about it.

      Gameplay became a bit dull when as Player1, I'd control the ducks with my toes on the second controller.

  8. Hidden Messages by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2, Informative

    I remember finding hidden messages in the Apple ][ games I played. It was relatively easy todo, because you could memory scan for $C000 or $C010 (IO address for the keyboard strobe) (i.e. Trivial to stash a memory scanner program at $0300 the memory area before the text page, because most cases would load their code at $0800.

    Another cool thing was finding hidden messages using a sector editor. It was quite feasable to scan 40 tracks * 16 sectors.

    Some of the hidden codes/messages I remember..

    Mario Bros
    - Instead of running the game, if you loaded it and took a look at the entry point, you saw a jump. If you "started" the game, 3 bytes later, you would get a text pages of message from The Fly about cracking it.
    i.e.
    BLOAD MARIOS BROS
    CALL -151
    803G

    - Gumball
    Press Ctrl-Z during the intermission to get hints about another Br0derbund game.

    - Spare Change
    Ctrl-z would bring up a secret control panel.

    more can be found here Apple Game Secrets

    --
    Original, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
    http://www.arcanejourneys.com/

    1. Re:Hidden Messages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When you're talking about secret messages, nothing beats the days of the pre-OS-X Mac OS, and digging through with Resedit. The Marathon games for example, had entire pages about "You probably shouldn't be reading this, but it's somethingsomething AM and we finally finished the game for shipping." etc.

      With Balloon Help on (which nobody used) one Ambrosia game had in large text "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!?!?!" when you moved the mouse over it's icon.

  9. Super Mario Bros. 3 Debug Code by Probius · · Score: 1

    One of the coolest console debug modes is for Super Mario Bros 3. If you put in game genie code KKKZSPIU, it will unlock a whole bunch of features, including extra lives, world select, and an option to change your power just by pressing select! More information is available at http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/ggco/betas/smb3debugm ode.html.

  10. Neat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow that is a pretty neat feature. I really liked the Banjo-Kazooie games I don't care if people complain about how it's just an item hunt. The worlds, characters, etc. where all beatifully designed I just love running around... sucks that I'll probably never play a new Rare game. Damn it I still don't get why Nintendo let them go over to Microsoft -___-

  11. Wow. by VoidReala · · Score: 1

    Was anyone around when Banjo-Tooie first came out and everyone was looking for Devil Bottles? Funny how they just found it now =D I wonder why they took it out? They still had his face used for speech bubbles and it was even USED in the game-show minigame. Did they ever find out what the Stop n Swap feature was for?

    --
    ~VoidReala