Conker: Live & Reloaded

"What has happened to you Rare?"

Conker: Live & Reloaded is a remake of the popular game, Conker's Bad Fur Day on to N64. For those who never played it, Conker is an orange squirrel who just had a little too much to drink, then the story goes from there. Not that there isn't a story, but for the veterans of the original will know what I'm talking about. Does this remake hold up to the original? Sadly it does not...

Graphics: 10/10
The graphics, as usual, is great in Conker: Live & Reloaded. Conker actually has individual fur hairs now.

Gameplay: 6/10 (Single-Player)
The gameplay hasn't changed much except for some subtle differences like your main weapon being a bat with nails instead of a frying pan. The entire game is divided into two genres: platforming and third-person shooting. The first half is platforming. While not necessarily 'boring', it is very simple and, compared to the platformers of this generation like Ratchet & Clank, out-dated. The third-person shooting is more fun, though, but there aren't enough levels of them.

Now the humor has always been the high-point of the original. Here, it hasn't changed much. You got some low-brow humor (which can be hilarious at times) along with parodies of popular movies, such as The Matrix (which is a cliche on its own). Stuff like the opera-singing mountain of turd never get old. One con is that its more censored than on the N64 version...

Gameplay: 5/10 (without Live), 3/10 (with Live)
Now this is where the game falls flat. Gone is the multiplayer from the original game, gone is the ability to have four people at once on a console. Now all you have is a class-based multiplayer mode with vehicles. It may sound good on paper, but the execution is terrible. First off, you get to choose between six classes. Each one has strengths and weaknesses and each one has their own vehicle to pick. The only mode you can do is either objective-based or team deathmatch on eight different maps. The controls can get a bit of getting used especially changing weapons (and no you can't change look sensitivity) and there is a large learning curve not to mention the interface is not that great (both offline and online)

For those without Live, you may not get those rewards like medals and such, but at least they kept bots in which is good. You (and a buddy via co-op) can play in a 8 vs. 8 bot game which is fun for a while, but can get boring very fast. Now the other multiplayer modes i.e. versus and system link, they're a joke. There can only be 1 vs. 1 on versus mode, and up to 2 vs. 2 via system link (and that's with four Xboxes) and those don't even include bots, but at least single-player bot matches are more fun than the Live portion of the game.

Now here is the lowest point of the game, the Live portion. Instead of playing with semi-intelligent bots, you now have to contend with spawn-killers and vehicle hoars, along with teammates who don't even know what to do (I had a game where my teamates put the enemy flag next to ours and on the same one I walked right into the enemy base and stole the flag through the front door...twice). While the objective-portion of the game can be slightly fun (when people actually try to complete the objectives), the team deathmatch is very poorly executed. As a fan of sniping, I chose the long ranger, but much of the maps aren't designed for snipers (not to mention the sight is hard to see especially on that snow stage) and that the spawn points aren't random, but set meaning any enemy can kill you just as you spawned. Only good thing about it is that you get rewards and upgrades for completing certain tasks.

Replayability: 5/10 (without Live), 8/10 (with Live)
At least Rare was smart to put all those unlockables and upgrades, so people can continue playing. For the offline people, you get Chapter X which is basically a story mode of the multiplayer section, but that's it.

Buy or Rent?
for those who never played the original, rent it because it takes around 10-15 hours to complete single-mode and still have fun with the [offline] multiplayer. Only if you truly like the multiplayer or just like Conker so much should you buy it.

It's these reasons and more that to me this game deserves a [slightly-below average] 4 out of 10.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/28/05