Ah, Super Nintendo, you have brought me much joy back in the day when you decided to put Mario and his collection of friends and foes on karts for racing action that made it almost seem as if the SNES controller was glued to my hands. I found similar joy back when Banjo-Kazooie was released, making my love affair with platform games a true obsession (yes, I admit it, I have a problem). So you see, when THQ and Rare decided to combine a kart-styled racing game with Banjo-Kazooie characters I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. How good is Banjo Pilot? Let’s just say that people think I glued my Game Boy Advance to my hands - sigh - some things never change.

The last time we saw Banjo and his feathered friend Kazooie on the GBA was Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty’s Revenge, so seeing them out of their usual platform element is a nice little change. Instead of karts, Banjo and his crew (as well as baddies like Gruntilda) are behind the steering wheels of airplanes. There are five main modes: Grand Prix, Time Trial, Jiggy Challenge, Quickrace and Champion Challenge. Grand Prix, the game’s main mode, consists of four races starting with the Honeycomb Cup then moving on to the Gold Cup. Time Trial has you racing against the clock to beat the best lap time. Jiggy Challenge has you racing against Bottles (who happens to be a mole) but the catch here is that you not only have to beat him but collect all six jigsaw puzzle pieces scattered throughout the track. Finish Grand Prix mode and Champion Challenge mode opens, which has you dueling against the current champion. There’s also a multiplayer mode fit for up to four players.

The races are three laps long and the tracks themselves offer plenty of Speed-Up Rings for extra speed bursts and weapon power-ups for when you want to get the upper hand on the other racers. While your airplane is armed with bullets, its the weapon power ups that do the most damage. There are power up that leave frozen eggs for you opponents to slam into and one that sends a flying saucer that takes down the lead racer. Gain enough points and you’ll even be able to buy secrets and extras from Cheato, Gruntilda’s spell book.

Control-wise the game is not any different from any other Mode 7-styled racing game. Banjo, Kazooie, Mumbo Jumbo and even Jolly Roger have similar airplanes but some are able to go just a bit faster than the others do and some can even make sharp turns. The simplistic controls allow you to make sharp turns and even make a barrel roll for when you want to dodge enemy fire. In short, it’s perfect and it allows you to concentrate on winning races. To top it all off, the game also offers a multiplayer mode that allows up to four players (using GBA Link Cables) to race each another. Really, this is quite possible the best multiplayer game you’ll find on the GBA since the Four Swords multiplayer mode in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Visually speaking, Banjo Pilot is a great-looking game with backgrounds straight out of the Banjo-Kazooie world. Spiral Mountain is a track composed of a forest area while Freezeey’s Peak is composed of an icy tundra and Jinxy’s Dunes is a desert track ... and that’s just the Honeycomb cup tracks. The good news is that each of the characters is distinguishable while racing so you’ll know who has the lead and who is struggling to fly right past you. The bad news is that while the game is able to display multiple racers on the screen at once you’ll often find that occasionally the lead racer might block your line of sight. This really isn’t a constant problem but when it does get in the way it becomes something of an annoyance.  Still, this is great work.

As for the sound, the soundtrack is not only hilarious it matches the game’s theme perfectly. You’ll find an assortment of tunes as well, which isn’t bad at all. Even more hilarious is the voice work that’s made up of the usual funny babble from past Banjo-Kazooie games. While you won’t hear the characters during the races, the game does possess some really good sound effects.

Banjo Pilot isn’t anything new or original but it’s still one of the most addictively enjoyable racing games you’ll find on your GBA this year. The game shines as a single-player game, but the multiplayer mode will knock your socks off so do share this one with a friend or three. So if you like Banjo and you love kart-racing games, you’ll love this one. 

Gameplay: 8.5
Banjo Pilot controls like a dream, we’re talking solid controls that fits well with the Mode 7-style racing. While the game will feel like your average Nintendo kart racer, going airborne just adds more of a challenge. The single-player mode is great fun, but it’s the multiplayer mode that wins big points.

Graphics: 8.0
The backgrounds look great on the GBA and the effects are particularly eye-catching. You’ll find that the game is able to display multiple racers on screen at once and while an opponent might cross your line of sight it doesn’t get bad at all. There’s even an instant replay of the entire race! It’s great stuff, indeed.

Sound: 8.0
The collection of tunes work well with the Banjo theme and it never becomes an annoyance. I still find the character’s weird language hilarious - especially Banjo who sounds so goofy it won’t fail to make you smile. The sound effects are actually pretty good as well.

Difficulty: Medium
There are plenty of challenges to be found the more you advance and if that weren’t enough Time Trail and Jiggy Challenge will keep you on your toes. The AI opponents are also pretty quick to recover so you’ll really have hustle in this one.

Concept: 8.2
Banjo-Kazooie characters in airplanes might not be an original concept but if you consider how charming the characters are, and how true to the kart racing style of Mario and Friends (the game was originally to be called Diddy Kong Pilot using Donkey Kong Country characters), you have a game that just as hard to put down. There are plenty of characters and enough challenges to go around.

Multiplayer: 8.5
While the single-player mode is nothing to sneeze at it’s the game’s multiplayer mode that makes this one a true joy to play. Grab three other friends (with their own GBA and copies of their games, of course) and hook up those GBA Link Cables because this is racing action at its most fun.

Overall: 8.2
Banjo Pilot is one of those games that isn’t big on originality but it excels in what it set out to do: bring us a racing game that’s truly addictive in every sense. So you’ve played a racing kart game like this before but with plenty of replay value and a killer multiplayer mode you’ll love what Rare did with this one.