Conker's Bad Fur Day

"Too little. To late. Certainly not bad, though."

Conker’s Bad Fur Day may come as a surprise to people. While many people claimed that it was unbelievably, shockingly inappropriate, the biggest surprise to me was how innocent it ended up being. No, CBFD is not the spawn of Satan. Far from it, actually. While it does more than enough to earn its M rating (especially with ESRB’s strict standards), it really does very little that you wouldn’t see in a movie or hear on a CD. The worst content that this game contains is really nothing more than an overload of feces, which isn’t exactly the end of the world.

The first news of Conker’s entrance into maturity came to me through the form of Electronic Gaming Monthly’s now famous article on it. It is well known that EGM includes a joke in their April issue every year to see who can catch what it is. News of Conker’s change to the dark side was posted in EGM’s April issue, causing many people to believe that this was their April Fools joke, despite the fact that they said at the beginning that it wasn’t. While I knew that it wasn’t their joke, I, like many other people, still had trouble swallowing that Rare’s now famous “kiddy” image was being chucked out the window for what was apparently going to be a gaming revolution.

The Nintendo 64 is often credited as being a kiddy system. I personally am not the biggest fan of this statement, but it is to an extent true. Not helping these matters was Rare chugging out numerous games so cartoonish and innocent that it would make Joseph Lieberman want to go out and shoot a hooker. Parents, or better yet, “Soccer Moms” knew they could trust the name Rare, so they were willing to unlock the cages on their bubble wrapped children for a few minutes so they could go out and play Rare’s games. Surprisingly, Rare finally decided to sacrifice this image of theirs and shoot for something new. It was a little to late in the game to change people‘s minds on Rare and Nintendo, but CBFD does come off as an interesting design choice.

First of all, Conker has a history that started before this game made its appearance. Originally a racer in Diddy Kong Racing, the cute little red squirrel (He would have to be a sodding squirrel, wouldn’t he?) later given his own game, known as Conker’s Pocket Tales, the Game Boy Color atrocity. Both of these were the typical bright, happy experiences we hade come to expect from Rare. Conker was also destined for an N64 game that would follow in the same vein as Banjo-Kazooie. Eventually though, news of this game stopped coming. This, along with the recent claim of a sequel to BK (Banjo-Tooie), was more than enough for people to believe the project had been canned. Little did we know that Rare had decided to turn the tables and instead destroy whatever sense of goodhearted family values this game may have at once had. This is not to imply that that the game is bad, because as I have said, it isn’t. What I am trying to say is that when you stack this game up to their previous titles, one can only wonder what changed in them. I can just imagine a conversation between Rare and Nintendo:

Rare: Were going for something a little more mature this time.

Nintendo: But Rare! People rely on you for goodhearted child friendly games!

Rare: Ah. Zat vil do. Out ze @#$!#@$ window vit zat.

In theory, Conker has all the makings of a good Rare character. He’s cute, cuddly, and not wearing any pants. But in reality, he has strayed away from everything Rare once stood for. What made this change in Conker? Perhaps it is years of harassment by Wizpig and the Evil Acorn. Perhaps it is jealousy over Banjo’s rise to fame, leaving him with nothing more than a crappy GBC game that no one played. Perhaps it is just the simple fact that years of being neglected by the gaming society has caused a buildup of suppressed rage and anger. Whatever it is, Conker no longer wants to be remembered as the lovable squirrel who battled an evil acorn. He’s kicking ass and taking names!

To clear something up before people get the wrong idea, I am not preaching this game to be squeaky clean. I’m just saying that I’ve seen worse and that it’s not that big a deal. Yes, this game does contain blood, gore, strong language and sexual themes. But they’re all pretty much mild, and nothing comes off as being truly obscene or vulgar. Every once in awhile something took me by surprise, such as the boiler that is “polished to the nth degree,” but usually its pretty innocent.

Despite a vast amount of varied and interesting scenarios that make this game a joy to play, the main plot of CBFD suffers from incredibly poor presentation. To put it simply, Conker decides to avoid his girlfriend and have a night on the town with the guys. He gets tanked, and ends up wasted in a field. Meanwhile, a panther keeps spilling his milk, and we all know what an intensely traumatic experience that can be. You see, he is spilling his milk because the table he places it on is missing a leg, causing it to lean over and drop the milk when it is placed on the table. He could of course buy a new table, but he would rather find a red squirrel and use him as the missing table leg. Hmmm…..now where do we know a red squirrel?

If there is anything Conker’s story suffers from, it’s poor presentation. Conker’s plot has more holes than Swiss cheese. Apparently Conker makes the perfect substitute for the leg of a table (how convenient), so he has been marked by The Fairy Panther King. But wait, who is that weasel scientist with the panther? What is he doing? What is his past? And why is he being threatened with duct tape?! If you read the instruction booklet, it helps explain these things (although I still had to put a lot of it together myself), but the game alone does little to even give you a clue what is going on. Not to mention the fact that the “Tediz” this scientist created seem to have no relevance whatsoever to anything that is going on. To fully understand the story, I had to refer to the instruction booklet and make my own inferences, so read on for my theory.

Over three hundred years ago, there was a war know as the great Milk War. It was a battle between the Weasel King and the oldest known race of squirrel, the Kulas of Conk. The Panther King betrayed the Kulas and became king. He chopped off the legs of the Weasel King and enslaved him into being his scientist (the same one I mentioned before). He banished the Kulas to “The Dark Place,” which could be referring to the haunted mansion seen later in the game, which would make sense since Conker’s relative, a squirrel, lives there. Speaking of which, Conker apparently is related to a rather unfortunate squirrel who has been alive for hundreds of years. Since Conker is related to him, he must also be related to his older ancestor who fought in the great Milk War. Unless his ancestor in the picture in the mansion and his ancestor that he met in the same mansion are the same person, which wouldn’t exactly make sense, then Conker is the descendant of a descendant whose ancestor fought in the war. In any case, back in the Milk War, Tediz, an army of teddy bears, were used as a weapon. However, they were ineffective weaponry, due to the fact that their stuffing was flammable and their button-like eyes kept falling out. The now legless Weasel King/scientist plans to bring back a stronger version of these Tediz to bring destruction to the gray squirrels and the Panther King. So to put it simply, Conker wants to get home, the panther needs a leg for his table, and the weasel is plotting a war. It’s so simple that it amazes me how Rare managed to screw it up. Practically nothing I just said is actually in the game, but is instead mentioned in the instruction booklet, so if you’re without one, prepare to be lost.

Luckily, the overall plot has little to do with the game, since the game’s main focus is simply on Conker’s adventures as he walks around looking for money and trying to find his way home. Along the way you meet a excellent cast of characters that ranges from a scarecrow to just about anything you can imagine. Each character you meet and scenario you play is always something new and innovative, making it uniquely addictive the first time you play.

Enhancing the game even more is a solid sense of humor. I wouldn’t go as far as to call CBFD hilarious, but it shoots for comedy and succeeds pretty well. It toilet humor isn’t your cup of tea, then Conker might not tickle your funny bone, but even the most cynical person can’t deny that there isn’t at least something funny in the game. Not to mention the large amount of movie parodies that are chucked in there. Sure, there’s the obvious ones such as The Matrix and Saving Private Ryan, and I even caught onto some of the less obvious ones such as jokes from Jaws and Aliens, but you’d have to have a pretty good knowledge of movies to catch them all. Often times, I didn’t even realize they were parodying a movie. The first time I saw a list of all the movies it cracked jokes on, I was surprised by how many I had missed.

Graphically, Conker aims at a bold cartoon style that I award in every aspect. Everything comes off exactly how it should. If you are familiar with Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, or Donkey Kong 64, then you know by now what to expect. Now imagine the same bright, lovable world, only blood and feces splattering all over the place. By now you are probably either intrigued, disgusted, or aroused. Conker does something that sets itself aside as truly unique. It happy cartoon design mixed with its gritty themes, along with its bright characters mixed with its dark humor create something that has to be seen to be fully understood. Its graphical style is unlike anything I have ever seen before, making it truly revolutionary.

The characters are also surprising in both style and how well done they are. The characters carry over the same design as the environments, meaning that they have a cheerful cartoon exterior that hides their less than cheerful personalities. As with other Rare titles, this game contains a variety of inanimate objects given life. You will see talking pitchforks, paint cans, cogs and so on. I could go into exquisite detail about every character, whether it be Gregg, Birdy, or even the gargoyle, but I think it’s a little early in the day to start talking about gothic architecture (Pun Alert!).

Despite graphical superiority over just about every other N64 game, the music is sadly somewhat poor. For the most part, it’s the kind of stuff you can actually forget while it’s playing. However, as you probably would have guessed, I must mention the timeless classic; The Great Might Poo! This particular scene is destined to be the most remembered part of the entire game. You just don’t see it coming. There isn’t anything quite like watching a piece of talking feces sing opera while chucking pieces of himself at you. Don’t even try to tell me you’ve seen that before. Also ranking with the small list of great songs is the incredibly depressing music that plays during the credits. Sadly though, you certainly won’t be humming anything else in the game.

The fact that the game managed to get voices onto a cartridge alone is respectable, but by some unexpected turn of events, the voices go above and beyond the call of duty and turn out to be for the most part great. Every character has a voice, and each one is fitting and can even be hilarious at times. I feel obligated to mention that while most of the voices sound great, Conker’s voice continues to change throughout the game, which can get a bit annoying. And when you can’t understand what they are saying (which is rare), there are comic style cartoon bubbles displaying the text.

Note: Although I’m probably going to make the game sound perfect right now, keep in mind that I do have my reasons for being disappointed, and that I will discuss them later.

The entire premise behind Conker is that anything can happen. It throws you from one scenario to another without any sort of warning, making it unpredictable in all aspects. The game capitalizes on this very concept by creating Context Sensitive Pads. What are Context Sensitive Pads? Why, sensitive to context, of course! The game makes sure that for anything that comes at you, you have a way out. Conker can and will do whatever options he is given. And if this requires battling a oversized piece of poo, jumping on the illustrious breasts of a sunflower, or extinguishing flaming demons with your own urine, then so be it. I’m not one to judge.

There are nine chapters within the game, each taking place in a distinctly different area. What truly makes this game fun to play is the fact that each scenario manages to be unique and interesting, and a lot of the time a flat out blast. Imagine battling a “Bourgeois Big-Bollocked Boiler” one minute, and then suddenly being morphed into a bat the next, now having to take a dump on innocent villagers running around to stun them so you can pick them up and toss them into a grinder so their blood can be fed through a pump to a vampire. Sounds pretty crazy, doesn’t it?

With all the qualities that the game brings, there is but one flaw that hurts it; it is far too short. Now don’t get me wrong. I have played this game more that enough times to get my money out of it, but this depressing fact hurts a game like CBFD more than it would for most normal games. Instead of having a basic foundation of gameplay, this game instead relies on a variety of different objectives and moments. So when you are tired of a certain area, you find yourself longing for it to be over so you can get to the parts you like. Luckily, there is a chapter section so you can choose any part of the game that you like, but even then you will eventually get bored. Every scenario is enjoyable, but not much more, so when your favorite parts become dull, the game suddenly doesn’t seem that great anymore. The lack of depth you were once praising suddenly becomes a curse, and you start question why you liked the game so much in the first place. It is sad that CBFD turns out to be so short, because if it was longer, I could only imagine all the new characters to meet, places to see, and British jokes to crack.

CBFD also includes a multiplayer mode, but it doesn’t really do much to improve the game. I am glad that it is there, but none of the options it gives you stands out to any particular grandeur. Most of them are worth a try and fun to experiment with, but none of them are anything you would want to play over and over. That’s to bad, too, because the variety of multiplayer options it gives you could have been great. There’s everything from hover-board racing to tank wars. From bank heists to smuggling Frenchies up a beach while Tediz try to stop you.

Even with the one glaring flaw, this game is still worth having. Few games have achieved the sheer amount of variety that this game has, making CBFD worth it for that alone. Luckily, the game is also a lot of fun and can be truly funny at times. I don’t think I have to tell you twice why you should get the game.

So go. Play it now. I don’t want to have to get the duct tape out. Again.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 04/29/04