So far, Rare's offerings for the Xbox haven't been all that great. When you look at it, most of their next generation stuff really hasn't been on par with the great stuff the development house is known for. Star Fox Adventures: Dinosaur Planet was one long, derivative collect-and-fetch quest and Grabbed by Ghoulies wasn't what Microsoft had hoped it would be. All is not lost though, since Kameo: Elements of Power looks like it may have just what it takes to bring sparkle back to the Rare name.
In Kameo, you take the role of a fairy princess, named Kameo, who has the power to transform into different creatures. Things are happy in the kingdom until Kameo is chosen to rule instead of her sister. In retaliation, her sister frees the Dark Troll King and unleashes all chaos.
In order to save the kingdom, and free her trapped ancestors, Kameo must learn to change into different creatures and use their abilities to venture into the Troll King's lands. Each of Kameo's forms grant her special abilities which she can use to solve puzzles and put a hurtin' on baddies. Chilla, a yeti looking creature, has the ability to rain ice shards all over the map as well as climb icy surfaces (which, as it turns out, are quite numerous). Major Ruin, an armadillo, has the ability to roll into a ball and travel through tubes like Samus in Metroid Prime. True to his name, Pummel Weed (who turned out to be my favorite of Kameo's forms) can deliver a flurry of punches to enemies, complete with a bullet-time inducing haymaker. Kameo will have other forms in the final game, but most were being kept under wraps for now.
Each form can be mapped to the face buttons, making switching between them a snap. As Martha Stewart would say, "This is a good thing" since many of the game's puzzles will require you to quickly switch from one form to another. One area had Major Ruin zooming through a tube and then turning into Chilla to latch on to a wall. As the game progresses, each form will evolve and gain new abilities as well.
Rare may have been slow getting out of the gate this generation, but with Kameo it looks like it Rare may have finally hit its stride.