Kameo 2

In the third-person action-adventure game Kameo (pronounced "cameo"), the player controls the titular character, an elf who inadvertently sabotaged her older sister Kalus' reputation before her coronation, causing Kameo to be given the crown and the Elemental Powers that come with it instead. Feeling slighted by this, Kalus frees the troll King Thorn and forms an alliance to take back her crown and the remaining elemental sprites. Kameo uses elemental powers to transform into creatures with different abilities, which she switches between to solve puzzles and advance through the in-game world. The player controls the player-character with the left analog stick, the game's camera view with the right thumbstick, and the character attacks and abilities with the controller's triggers. The Xbox 360 controller's face buttons swap between three active, elemental powers.

These ten "elemental warriors" include a fire-breathing creature who lights torches, a gorilla who climbs walls and throws foes, and a plant who punches opponents. There are two each of five element types (fire, ice, plant, rock, water). Some enemies have specific weaknesses and can only be affected by specific elemental powers or hazards in the environment. The game is structured such that new character abilities unlock just as their benefits are needed to solve a puzzle.

Rare's protracted development of Kameo spanned four consoles: Nintendo's Nintendo 64 and GameCube, Microsoft's Xbox, and ultimately, the Xbox 360. The game became known for its long development cycle—IGN wrote that the game had received more IGN editor coverage during its development than "almost any other single game". In the final game, a recipe can found that reads "Take one Cube of ice… Add two beetles from a Box of Creepy Crawlies… Heat to 360 degrees…" which alludes to the development cycles on each console. Shortly after Rare finished work on Donkey Kong 64, Kameo began as a game in which the player catches and evolves creatures.

In lead designer George Andreas's concept, the creatures would follow the player and act of their own volition. This version had a "Nintendo feel" and Pokémon-like concept: the player nursed little monsters into adults. Kameo spent several years in development for the GameCube and Rare shared an early version of the game at E3, an annual video game conference. In the meantime, Microsoft acquired Rare in September 2002 for a record price of $377 million.

A year prior to Kameo's release, GamesRadar wrote that while they highly anticipated the title and expected it to be of high quality, they thought the game's continual delays would likely hurt the final product. Closer to release, Tom Bramwell (Eurogamer) added that he had expected the game to be the best among the Xbox 360 launch titles. Kameo's core gameplay concept brought his anticipation to par with that customary for The Legend of Zelda titles, and he thought the game would reap the benefits of its long development through refined audiovisuals. Xbox executive Peter Moore announced Kameo as his favorite launch title in anticipation of the Xbox 360's launch.

The game received "generally favorable" reviews, according to video game review score aggregator Metacritic. Market research company NPD Group reported that Kameo sold 300,000 copies while Retro Gamer reported that the game sold over 700,000 copies. GameSpot described the NPD Group figures as significantly below expectations and the sales of Rare's other Xbox 360 launch title, Perfect Dark Zero. Retro Gamer described its figures as "respectable ...

In retrospect, Kotaku wrote that Kameo would be remembered as "that pretty Xbox 360 launch game", which IGN confirmed a year after its release. While some games journalists reported unfavorable views towards Kameo, they also reported its fanbase to be dedicated. Other games journalists described the game as underrated. Kameo was among the first batch of games to be sold digitally with the Xbox 360's Games on Demand service in August 2009.

Kameo was later included in Rare Replay, a compilation of 30 Rare titles, released for the Xbox One in August 2015. The game runs through emulation on the newer console. Kameo was among the first batch of games to be supported for the feature. The Rare Replay emulated release includes all original downloadable content for free and lets players migrate their Xbox 360 cloud saves to their Xbox One.