Conker's Bad Fur Day Hands-On
We've been playing through Rare's M-rated 3D platformer for the Nintendo 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day. Does it live up to its hype as the most raunchy console game ever? Check out our hands-on report and find out.
In its two initial incarnations, Conker 64 and Conker: 12 Tales, Conker's Bad Fur Day was just like any other 3D platformer developed by Rare. It featured a cute animal as the main character, it was brightly colored, and it was squarely targeted at the whole family. After some intense criticism from the press, which claimed that the last thing the Nintendo 64 needed was another happy-go-lucky platforming game, Rare went back to the drawing board. A year later, Rare shocked the video game industry when it announced that Conker had undergone a metamorphosis and would be released as an M-rated title full of violence and suggestive themes. After the disbelief wore off, many were left wondering if Conker's BFD would be nothing more than a gratuitous romp through the valleys of excess.
Conker begins his quest at a local pub. After a night of hard drinking with his war-bound rodent friends, Conker stumbles out of the bar, where he meets a strange figure and proceeds to vomit on its shoes. Dazed and bewildered, Conker stumbles through the foggy night until he becomes lost and passes out. When Conker wakes up, he finds himself hung over and in another world. Standing in Conker's way on his quest to get home is a colony of incompetent weasels ruled by a sinister panther. Conker lives on caffeine, and his life bar is represented by a segmented chocolate bar. When all the pieces of chocolate are gone, Conker dies. Extra lives are awarded by finding hidden squirrel tails. If you are in the middle of a multistepped process and run out of lives, you have to begin the process all over again.
On his own, Conker doesn't have a great deal of moves to perform. He may jump, hover, crawl, swim, and pull out a frying pan or shotgun for hand-to-hand combat. Finding confidence pills awards Conker with the ability to swim underwater. Conker also gains temporary abilities by stepping on pads scattered throughout the worlds and pressing the B button. The action performed on each pad is almost always different. Sometimes he gains the ability to use a slingshot, while other times he receives special equipment like a mining hat. The pads are always there to accomplish a specific task, and they clue you in as to exactly what needs to be done next.
Rare made all the right changes in bringing Conker's Bad Fur Day up to adult speed. Besides holding the title as the most risqué game to ever hit a video game console, Conker's BFD discards the daunting collecting scheme that has caused older players to lose interest in games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64 in the past. There is absolutely nothing to collect, and there isn't even an inventory screen to pore over. Instead, Conker's BFD sets up a specific task and asks you to accomplish it. Once that task is completed, another one is presented. With that said, Conker's Bad Fur Day is by no means linear. There are no definitive levels in the game, so you may wander wherever you please in attempts at finding a new area to explore. Random enemies are rare, and the majority of combat is relegated to the prodigious boss fights that happily occur frequently. Another aspect of Conker's Bad Fur Day that is sure to be a hit with older players is the inclusion of countless movie spoofs. The Terminator, Reservoir Dogs, The Godfather, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator, and The Matrix are but a sample of the list of movies that are cleverly parodied in Conker's Bad Fur Day.
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- GameSpot Score9.3Editors' Choice
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