After raising well over 2 million pounds through its 2015 Kickstarter Yooka-Laylee has now finally arrived. I can only hope its massive success will herald a resurgence of 3D platformers, a genre that is incredibly dear to my heart, yet almost completely ignored by the gaming industry in general.
As for Yooka-Laylee, here's the recently posted launch trailer showcasing most of the gameplay elements. If you've ever played Banjo-Kazooie chances are you already know what to expect, but even still you should probably give the video a look. Here it is:
If you're wondering whether Yooka-Laylee is any good, however, that's a bit of a tricky question to answer. You can find my full review by heading over here, but long story short, "Yooka-laylee attempted to bring back the 3D platformers of old, but has unfortunately gotten stuck in the 1990's with them. It definitely serves as a nice little homage to Banjo-Kazooie, but it never quite manages to reach the same level of greatness. When removed from the context of its predecessor, however, Yooka-Laylee is nothing more than an average platformer. It'll give you a dozen hours of entertainment, but chances are you won't be coming back to it again. That said, I would love to see a Twooka-Laylee somewhere down the line because the concept really is solid, its just that the execution is a bit clumsy."
To learn more, or just grab yourself a copy, you should head over to Steam or GOG. I'd personally go with the GOG version as it has no DRM and its a little bit cheaper, but other than that there is no functional difference between the two. Have fun, and I hope the camera doesn't mess with you like it did with me!