Talk about variety...greatly overdone variety.
It has an identity crisis.
Now, I love platformers, especially because parts of the gameplay can be key features of other genres. With the right balance, a good platformer game can essentially be almost all genres. And it's a very good sign when a platformer takes these elements and integrates them wonderfully into the game. However, I feel that these integrated elements should be kept at a minimum. Scratch that, I like platformers to include as much as they possibly can. But CBFD greatly overdoes this. While other platformers can keep these integrated elements with a minimal role and still be one heck of a game (a la Spyro the Dragon or Banjo), CBFD pretty much makes these new elements the entire game. Rare, as genius as they were in the N64 days, couldn't hit a homerun every time. Some of these are seriously terrible and outright suck. At least when they are minigames I can skip the ones I hate, and only do the ones I like. But even though CBFD has a 'chapter select' function, you still have to go through them in the main game.
I still wouldn't mind it that much, however, it seems like the entire singleplayer is more based around cramming as many random ideas into one game as possible and seeing Conker's occasionally funny reactions than making a single fun, cohesive game. With the focus of the game changing so rapidly, so constantly, the game never seems to settle on one idea. The pacing was too much. One moment you're battling poo (no kidding), the next you're blasting zombies with a shotgun, the next you're racing over lava. These events literally have no relation to each other and just seem to be ways to mix up the action. There's just no weight created.
The game changes so much that Rare utilized a 'context sensitive' button. Normally, the B button has Conker whip out his frying pan for bashing enemies. However, stepping on certain areas will make a light bulb appear above Conker's head. At that point, pressing the B button will perform an action relevant to the current task. Sounds all well and good, but there's too many play styles, so Rare made one button do everything. I wish they would've stuck with something.
The game's rather linear, and though there are good points there are bad ones as well. There's a multiplayer mode, which is pretty nice for the value however most aren't going to last you a long time. The worst part about Conker was that it crammed too much into one game, and never established a proper identity. Until the final boss there's little to no cohesion throughout the entire game. This game just needs to make up its mind sometimes.