How could this game have passed by my childhood?
Story: Get this, the game starts with a Clockwork Orange reference as Conker tells you that he is a king and starts to tell you how he came to this. It starts when Conker gets drunk and walks off, ending up far away from home. He wakes up in a place that you'll visit again late in the game, and meets what seems to be a scarecrow that's been drinking hard alcohol. The scarecrow explains context sensitive pads, which are a large part of the game. Throughout the rest of the game, the plot takes a turn or two and you end up in several strange places. Throughout the game, you meet several unusual characters. Unusual, but great nonetheless. A living pitchfork, a pack of fire demons, a grim reaper that looks like he missed his growth spurt, all of the characters you meet are just crazy and awesome. Chances are, you're not gonna like all of the characters, but that's why they're so great.
Design: It may be due to the fact that this is the last game to be released for the N64 (or at least the last great one), but this game has probably the best graphics that the console has to offer. There's not a pixel to be found in the backgrounds or on the characters. The backgrounds are well designed and for the most part colorful. The level design is excellent. The levels are designed to be challenging. I originally thought that this would be a game that I could clear in a few hours, but it's actually a very difficult game. It took me about 12 hours not counting slacking off to clear this game. There are several parts of the game that are incredibly frustrating, but the best parts are the ones where you can experience the platforming aspect of the game. The music is fantastic. The Windy theme is one of the best video game songs ever. It's simply fantastic. Every song reflects the background and is well done beyond all recognition. And how many games have a giant singing pile of scat singing to you, and it ends up being one of the best songs in video game history? The cutscenes, as pointed out by Conker during the first chapter, are wonderful. It allows you to skip the cutscenes after seeing them once, but why would you want to? The cutscenes are friggin awesome! One cutscene that I remember because it's so weird is during the War chapter. You're fighting a boss that is a robot, but is also a teddy bear, and the part that does the thinking is a little thing on it's hand that resembles a little girl. The second time you knock it off, it starts to get really pissed and literally calls you "a little @$&% sucker." That's what they said, I'm not kidding. The sound, graphics, and cutscenes are all fantastic.
Gameplay: The style of gameplay is platforming at it's core. Conker can jump, run, swim, and wield guns among other things. Throughout the game you are completing various tasks for your own benefit and earning cash. Conker isn't the most likable protagonist however, as a matter of fact he's a huge ass but he gets better. He is not a very nice squirrel, but most of the other characters in the game are terrible also. A few characters that are nice to him are Franky the pitchfork, The heavily-armored Rodent, and his girlfriend Berri. Berri's voice kind of annoys me. It's a combination between the way a teenage girl talks, and an english accent. Speaking of english accents, I just love Conker's voice acting. I hope that if this game ever gets it's highly sought after sequel, the same guy does Conker's voice acting. The gunplay is relatively clumsy, but you start to get used to it after the first time you blast zombie heads with a shotgun. This IS a challenging game, you will die and likely get game overs. Heaven knows I did. The multiplayer is what it is. You select one of several game modes and a map. There's four gameplay modes that have the standard deathmatch gameplay style, Deathmatch, War, Raptor, and Heist. Deathmatch and War are your standard deathmatch modes, War is basically Team Deathmatch. Heist you're trying to steal a bag of money while slaughtering the other players at the same time. In Raptor, you're trying to steal an egg from a bunch of raptors and one way or another, someone is going to get eaten. Probably not the egg. There's a race where you fly on hoverboards and a tank mode which my brother kicks my ass in. The last one's beach where you run from point A to point B while you have machine gun bullets, sniper bullets, and missiles. You can also defend the base. The gameplay is perfect even though it's frustrating.
I enjoyed this game more than any game I've played this year. I loved playing through it and I'd do it again.