Conker: Live and Reloaded Multiplayer Hands-On

We recently got to play a work-in-progress build of Conker: Live and Reloaded, the upcoming remake of 2001's Conker's Bad Fur Day, now with a new multiplayer game added on. After exploring both the single- and multiplayer games, it appears that the bawdy humor and strange appeal of watching cute animals blow each other up has been well preserved for this Xbox-exclusive remake.

You'll start the game in a tavern called The Cock and Plucker, where you can choose to play a remake of Bad Fur Day, or you can enter the Live & Co. room to start or join a multiplayer game. On the offline multiplayer side, you'll have access to co-op, versus, chapter X, and solo modes. Solo lets you play a custom game against a team of artificial intelligence characters called "dumbots," and chapter X lets you play through each level in succession with a mission briefing before each stage. Co-op and versus will have you and a friend battling solo or as part of a team of AI characters in a variety of sizable levels, with themes ranging from World War II battlefields to futuristic landscapes.

The levels we've seen so far vary in size, from wide-open expanses to narrow, winding corridors. On most of the maps we played, there were plenty of explosions and hectic action sequences at certain choke points, making it unwise to stay in any one place for too long. Once you get killed, you can choose from a number of spawn points depending on what type of game you're playing.

The first level is "Beach Dead," a D-Day-style assault map where you'll be charging up a beach to secure checkpoints and ultimately capture a heavily defended enemy fort. Some of the other levels include an abandoned prison facility where you'll play capture the flag, and a castle level that plays similarly to onslaught mode from Unreal Tournament 2004, where you have to secure points along the way to a main enemy generator that must be destroyed. When choosing each level, you can customize the bots and view a mission briefing that will explain the objective of each level with a silly cinematic scene.

There are six distinct character types to choose from in the multiplayer game. Each character has special abilities--such as self-heal, feign death, infravision, and a cloaking ability--and most character classes get unique weapon upgrades as well. The characters all have unique primary weapons, and some are faster than others. The grunt uses a machine gun and is good as a general-use character. The sneaker is best for close-range combat, as it uses a saber and has the feign-death and cloaking abilities. The heavy-damage characters are the demolisher and the thermophile, who are equipped with a bazooka and flamethrower, respectively. There's also a sniper class and a sky jockey, who can pilot air vehicles.

Speaking of vehicles, there are five available, which you'll access by approaching terminals on the battlefield and selecting the unit of your choice. Each character class is trained to drive specific vehicles, but some vehicles can carry more than one person. The vehicles include: the Toad MK. II, an all-purpose land vehicle with a mounted turret gun; the R-Hog, a fast but light assault vehicle; the Tankus, a slow but powerful tank vehicle; and the Steed and Mule 52, which are both airborne vehicles. There are also weapons terminals on some levels where you can choose to manufacture an automatic turret gun that will mow down enemy foot soldiers in the area, a missile launcher to guard against airborne attacks, and a set of three land mines you can place throughout the level. You have to pick up these objects and carry them to where you want them to be, and you can't use any other weapons or move quickly while carrying the equipment, so your timing is important for setting up defenses.

The levels and game modes we played were familiar enough to pick up quickly, and the chaotic pace of the multiplayer matches kept things interesting. The look and feel of the game is definitely Conker, with exaggerated and gory deaths like something you might find in an episode of Happy Tree Friends. The single-player game looks like a promising remake of the classic Nintendo 64 title, with good-looking graphics, responsive controls, and exactly the kind of voice acting you'd expect from a Conker title. We'll see if Conker's blend of irreverent humor and hectic action strikes a chord with gamers on Xbox Live when Live and Reloaded is released in June. In the meantime, check out a slew of new screenshots from the game's multiplayer mode.