At a raunchy press event held in a broken down English pub on the wrong side of town in Las Vegas, Nintendo showed off an almost final version of what could be Rare's last N64 game, Conker's Bad Fur Day. Starring a foul-mouthed and cranky English squirrel named Conker, the 3D platformer tells the story of one horrible day that begins after a long night of binge drinking. We had a chance to sit down with the game and found that Conker is easily one of the most shocking and humorous games to ever appear on a console.

Conker is a crude but friendly squirrel with an English accent who opens the game as king of some unknown land. In a voice-over, he explains that it was only yesterday that he came to be king, and apparently it was a terrible day--what he usually calls a bad fur day. From there, a series of flashbacks shows Conker brushing off a night with his attractive but ditsy squirrel lady-friend to spend some quality time tossing back brews with his mates at his favorite pub. Conker drinks a few too many, and he stumbles out of the pub in a drunken haze. He stops to vomit on the shoes of an evil looking turtle, then meanders home. In the process, he ends up taking a wrong turn, and he eventually finds himself hungover, tired, and far from his home. It's here where the game begins, as Conker must make his way through various levels and solve plenty of problems in an attempt to collect as much cash as he can before he finally makes his way to bed.

Mixed in with the cutscenes featuring Conker are flashback cutscenes featuring a panther king, who is sitting on the same throne that Conker recently claimed. The panther king appears to command an army of cartoon weasels. A cutscene shows two weasels bringing the king a glass of milk, then it shows the glass falling from a table with one broken leg and spilling. The king becomes upset and orders his scientist to solve the problem of the broken table leg. Though these scenes were definitely amusing, it wasn't clear exactly how they tied in with the story of Conker, and Nintendo wouldn't reveal further details about the game's plot.

Conker runs on chocolate. His life bar is composed of six chocolate squares that make up an entire bar. When Conker gets hurt, he'll lose chocolate. When his chocolate is all gone, Conker dies. Once dead, you're treated to a funny sequence showing Conker conversing with a pint-sized grim reaper who has a squeaky, girlish voice. The reaper explains to Conker that squirrels have as many lives as they think they can get away with, and offers Conker a deal: Conker can rise from the grave in exchange for a squirrel tail, which are hidden throughout the game. Once you've completed the deal, you're zapped back to the start of your particular scenario, and you have to redo any steps you may have completed before your untimely demise. Enemies will usually only take one of Conker's chocolate squares, but some enemies, especially boss characters, can take more. Conker can usually find chocolate floating about in the corners of the levels or relatively close to a boss character.

Nintendo claims that Conker is an entirely different beast than past Rare 3D platformers. Instead of spending your time collecting items like in the Banjo series, Conker presents you with a series of problems that have a definite solution. The solution often takes some creative thinking, and it usually requires some savvy moves, but each problem has a defined start and finish and rewards you for solving it. The reward is usually cold, hard cash. Conker is indeed a greedy squirrel, but the money also allows him to purchase special items and moves from other characters. The game has large pads that are context sensitive--if you press the B button when Conker is standing on a pad, he'll perform whatever action is appropriate in that scenario. Some pads will allow Conker to pull out special weapons or items, and some will allow Conker to perform special actions. In one scenario, Conker stands on a pad and pulls out some Alka-Seltzer to cure his hangover, while in another scenario, Conker stands on a pad and pulls out a slingshot to take out some bully dung beetles.