I have finally had the time to complete BK:Nuts and Bolts to a satisfactory point. I didn’t collect every last note in every single world nor did I retrieve all of the Mumbo crates in Showdown Town; however (thanks to Microsoft) I have this new outlook that when I have completed achievements I have completed the game and there simply weren’t achievements for these things. But I did “beat” the game as in finishing the last level and I collected all the jiggies, which are really the main focus, so I’d save I covered it and saved myself mindless headaches.

BK:Nuts and Bolts is a game that you have to look at from a new angle; it’s really quite original to be honest. At first you’ll start the game thinking that you’re in for some old school BK platforming fun, but you’re not. The game is built to provide you with a robust vehicle editor, realistic physics and a whole lot of mocking itself. Once you come to accept these things, you’ll find yourself enjoying the game so much more than when you were trying to play it like a platformer.

Really, I can’t express enough that this game is about building vehicles of all shapes and sizes. When you begin you won’t have much to work with, but eventually you’ll have jet powered boats with retractable wings, laser weapons and monster wheels and you’ll be telling yourself how this is the most awesome vehicle in the world…then you’ll build a cooler one.

The game basically provides you with 5 worlds, split up into 5-6 acts a piece each with varying numbers of jiggies to collect through mini-games. The world is the same in each act, but the tasks to complete are different. You will wander around the world finding familiar Banjo characters and talking to them will initiate a different mini-game. These range from simple fetch quests, to races to some fairly unique things. But, the point of each is to do it as best as you possibly can. This is where you will need to put on your creative cap to get into the game.

Going into mini-games I basically thought to myself, alright, I’ll pick my default vehicle for the type of challenge and run through it once to see how good I do. Most of the time you’ll be able to get the jiggy in a few tries, but to get the trophy out of it you’ll have to go back again. So, to get the trophy after trying it out I’d look at it and say where can I improve and then go modify my vehicle to make it better until I could score the trophy. When all else fails, the online leaderboards are always available where you can download and watch videos of the top 10 people. There’s sure to be an idea there that can help you.

So, before I start rambling, I’ll just restate my point one more time. This is not another platformer and if you want it to be you will not enjoy it until you change your mindset. Once you realize it’s all about the vehicles and you start getting into building them and all the awesome parts you can obtain for them you will realize how much more this game is than just a typical platformer. Not to mention at it’s low price tag (mine was only $36 on Amazon) you’ll get a ton of game time out of it (I got 30+ hours). You just don’t find that sort of value anymore.