MundoRare: The Demise of a Popular Rareware Fan Site

There have been numerous websites that are devoted to news and information regarding Rare (sometimes known as Rareware), the game developers behind such classics as Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, and Conker's Bad Fur Day. Since 2001, one such website, MundoRare, has been dedicated to sharing everything from news about upcoming titles, interesting facts about classic games, and details about games that Rare worked on for a time before canceling them. Once a small Spanish-speaking website, it soon became a large English website, and has been popular for Rare fans over the past nine years. However, as of July 25th, 2010, MundoRare has closed, its site remaining online, but it will never again be updated. What was MundoRare like, and why did it suddenly shut down? That is what I am here to tell you.

When MundoRare went online on January 19th, 2001, the company was preparing to release its final Nintendo 64 title Conker's Bad Fur Day, which, despite critical acclaim, was poorly marketed by Nintendo of America due to its mature conflict and was not even published by Nintendo in Europe (THQ ended up handling the publishing duties in Europe). Nevertheless, Rare was gearing up to release a number of games for Nintendo's newest systems, the Gamecube and Game Boy Advance, many of which would feature such characters as Donkey Kong and Banjo and Kazooie, who starred in other popular Rareware games. One game, then known as Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet (later just Star Fox Adventures), was a revamped version of a Nintendo 64 game that now included characters and elements from the Star Fox series. Little did anyone suspect that it would become the last Rare game to appear on a Nintendo console.

As many Rare fans know, the company parted ways with Nintendo after Star Fox Adventures was released and it became a part of Microsoft. Consequently, MundoRare spent many of its years covering Rare's Xbox and Xbox 360 releases, though some of the company's games would end up being released on the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS since Microsoft does not have a hand held system. Despite the move to Microsoft and Rare's seemingly declining quality, the MundoRare staff was always willing to cover the games, and they considered many of Rare's titles to be good, if not as good as those that were released during the Nintendo 64 era. There was a notable exception, on which more later, but there was more from MundoRare than just reporting on new and upcoming games.

MundoRare has, from time to time, talked about games that were in the works at Rare at one point, but they never saw the light of day. Some of these were games that fans have been wanting for years. Conker was supposed to have a second Bad Fur Day and go on another mature-rated adventure. It never happened. Sabreman Stampede, which was once a racing game starring Donkey Kong, had one of Rare's oldest characters in an adventure in which he could catch and ride on animals. It was canceled when development on the game went nowhere. Jet Force Gemini was supposed to have a Game Boy Color version. Production on it was scrapped likely because the Nintendo 64 version did not sell very well. The Battletoads were slated to make a come back on the Game Boy Advance. Alas, they may be waiting for many more years before Rare gives them a revival. These and other titles would likely have become popular had they been released, but we will never find out what they would have been like.

Besides information on new and canceled games, MundoRare would report on interesting facts about existing games. Did you know that at one point, Diddy Kong Racing was called RC Pro-Am 64, a new version of an old NES game? How about the fact that there was a game that started out as Diddy Kong Racing 2 before becoming Dinosaur Planet which in turn became Star Fox Adventures? Such a game would have resolved the "to be continued..." ending of the original game, but with Rare now a part of Microsoft and Diddy Kong owned by Nintendo, the game will probably never materialize.

Recently, MundoRare has reported on Nintendo's upcoming Wii version of Goldeneye 007 as well as Donkey Kong Country Returns, neither of which involves Rare, and the company's new logos, of which reaction has been mixed. What really made the MundoRare staff, and the fans, upset, however, was the announcement of Rare's first game for the Microsoft Kinect accessory. For the first and only time, MundoRare gave a negative reaction to a game, which in this case was Kinect Sports. They saw the game as being little more than a Wii Sports clone, and were appalled that, whether on orders from Microsoft or on their own volition, Rare would eschew sequels to Conker, Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, and other games in favor of it. While the game itself has yet to be released as of this writing, it is being seen as a reason for MundoRare's decision to close its doors. However, it is not the only reason for the closure.

With so much work on their hands, the MundoRare staff felt that a fun hobby had turned into something that took up a lot of their time. Feeling that they needed to get something in return for all of their hard work, they chose to film an hour long documentary, to be shot on location in England, which would showcase Rare's 25-year history. The film, which would have included interviews with various Rare staff members and would have been presented in HD, would cost the MundoRare staff absolutely nothing since they already had all of the required equipment at their disposal. Had the film been made, it would have eventually been shown online as well as on the Xbox Live Arcade.

What went wrong? Rare sent MundoRare a message denying their request to film the document. The reason? Apparently, the company felt that the documentary would not be what they would consider to be "on message." This was despite the fact that the MundoRare staff felt that the project was well-intended and entirely safe. They wanted to do something wonderful for themselves and fans by filming the documentary. The fact that they were denied has given them no choice but to close the website. Granted, the idea to shut down MundoRare was already planned in the event that the project failed to work out, but since the staff now feels that they no longer view Rare as being as great of a company as they once was in part because of their refusal, their decision to bring a nine-year era to a close quickly became final.

Rare has fallen from grace slowly in recent years, as MundoRare has pointed out. Games that could have been great received mixed reactions. For example, both Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero, which were in development for the Xbox for a time, ended up being rushed out as launch titles for the Xbox 360, and as such, the two games were not as superb as they could have been. A remake of Conker's first game became more censored than the original version, Banjo and Kazooie found themselves in a vehicle-based game that was a stark contrast to their classic platform games, and the aforementioned Kinect Sports seems to indicate that Rare wishes to cater to casual audiences instead of hardcore players. Feeling that the company has now really jumped the shark because of its new direction, MundoRare has opted to close instead of continuing to report on its current, future, and unreleased games.

Even though MundoRare was preparing to close, it still had a few more articles to share with its fans before the staff completely called it quits. One of them was a farewell letter citing its reasons for the closure. Another one talked about the troubled history of Sabreman Stampede, which would have marked Sabreman's first starring adventure on a 3D console, but was canceled by 2007. Videos and concept art from the game show what it might have been like had it been released. Then there was an article with events that seemed to foreshadow Rare's act of leaving Nintendo, going as far back as 1998. You can read these articles on the website, the link of which I will post at the end of this article. They go to show that, even though the MundoRare staff will no longer talk about anything related to Rare, they still had information to present to its loyal fans prior to closing up shop.

I have checked out MundoRare in recent months, reading articles about current events, as well as games that we will never get a chance to play. All of them are fascinating, and the articles about unreleased games in particular make me wonder how things would be like had they come out. Would Rare have been as good of a company, if not more so, as they were before moving to Microsoft? When and will they ever make sequels that people have been wanting for a long time? We will never find out the answers, at least not on MundoRare. The closure itself is sad and unfortunate, but what led to it was especially tragic. The film, which I myself would have wanted to check out along with other die hard Rare fans, was canceled all because of Rare's seemingly nonsensical decline to be filmed. It seems that the company itself has fallen so far from grace, and also seems to show such little respect for their longtime fans, that I now feel that it is hard to love or even support the company. MundoRare's decision therefore must have been the right one, but I am sure it is still very much a bittersweet one for them and the fans.

People can continue to visit MundoRare, to catch up on various articles and to get a taste of what they will surely miss. The web site's nine year journey has surely been a fascinating one, which ended as a result of the very company that they were covering taking a turn for the worse in the eyes of longtime fans. Might it come back if Rare improves once again? At the moment, the answer seems to be no, as Rare may never get really good again as long as it remains as it is today. The circumstances surrounding the closure is quite tragic, but at least we can always look at what they have written about over the years and remember Rare as they were in the past, as they are now, and as they could have been had things worked out differently. You can visit MundoRare at the following address:

http://mundorare.com/home