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Bortlog: Conker's Bad Fur Day

Time for another Bortlog! Yay!

Once upon a time, there was a little-known company called Rare.
One day they started making a lot of money by taking the original Donkey Kong character and putting him in a totally new kind of environment.
These became very popular and it set off a whole string of Rare games featuring cutesy animal characters, and household appliances with eyes and mouths.
There was a slight undercurrent of toilet humor in these games, with some flatulence and belching thrown in, in a great example of the Britain's Finest Humor.
And one day at Rare's office, there was a conversation going a little like this:

Corporate Snob: "So, any new ideas?"
Worker Ant: "Well, sir, we were thinking we could make another new game starring perhaps a cute red squirrel, with yellow flowers, green grass, and possibly some pink bunnies..."

And it would have looked something like this:



But Mr. Fine Taste didn't like this one bit and said:
"I like the squirrel, but it needs more toilet humor."
"Well, Sir, I rather think we've depleted that source of marvellous high-brow humor, and I thought that maybe this time..."
"Then we'll go ones step further! Not just farts and burps anymore! I wanna see piss, barf and shit! And LOADS of it. SHITLOADS, so to speak! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Laugh damn you, I'm your boss!"
"Ha. Ha. Sir. But I don't think the people at Nintendo will...."
"Fuck those yellow bastards! We're gonna do it MY way or the.....uh...that other way! I want swearing, violence and loads of CRAP. And I mean that literally! AND I WANT MY GODDAMN RED FUCKING SQUIRREL, NOW!"

And this is what happened:


And, damn it, it's a fucking blast.
This is one of the funniest, most original platform games I've played....well, EVER!
It's hilarious!
You get all the Trademark Rare cute character designs, with EVERYTHING having a face and a voice, yet everyone is totally rude, profane, foulmouthed and abusive, to everyone's merriment!

And what's more, they've got the gameplay to back it all up. Gone is the tedious open-ended level dwelling, searching for Stars, Coins, Puzzle Pieces, Banana's and God only knows what else, but instead you get....well...it's hard to describe, but basically, every stage has a couple of tasks you need to perform, just to advance the story, and occasionally earn some money. I love the Wads of Cash, by the way. They WANT to be collected, but when you do, they just give you abuse.
"Come on! Hurry Up! Pick me up, SHITHEAD!"
Well, it made ME laugh.

Money is generally your reward after completing enough tasks, and occasionally you'll need a certain amount of money to pass a specific line in the game, but only extremely occasionally, to make sure you don't get ahead of the story. And with a system like this, you get a platform game that is surprisingly story-driven.
Of course, it's all a load of Bollocks, as they say, it's totally inane, has no point or logic whatsoever, but man, is it fun! I can't even tell you what it's about because I'm not too sure myself, it just serves for humor anyway. Only thing I know is that the Evil Panther King is after Conker because he needs a new leg for his table to put his milk on.
There, that should give you an idea of the complete nonsense in this game.

Also, the fact that you have to perform tasks, and not find some stupid magic items or something, means that there's a great variety in styles of gameplay. It's not all platform skipping, oh no, there's shotgun blasting, wing-flapping and ass-biting as well!
There are so-called Context Sensitive Pads throughout the game, with a huge 'B' mark on them. Stand on top of them and a lightbulb will appear over Conker's head. Press B at that point and something that is sensitive to that context will happen. It's all the rage in games these days, since it's a very easy way to incorporate lots of different moves and skills into one game, without using insane button combinations.

Presentation-wise, everything is in order as well. I mean, come on! This is Rare, we're talking about, they KNOW how to squeeze the most out of any console, and they know how to make great graphics, huge levels, and very high quality music.
Conker is no exception. The soundtrack is another mixed bunch of a variety of styles, and most of it is really good. Be it country music, techno, or brooding orchestral music, this game's got it all, and uses it very well.
Voice acting's great too, very funny and with unique voices.
The battle against the Great Mighty Poo is one of the single most hilarious things I've ever witnessed in my entire history as a gamer, extremely funny, and great bombastic Opera music, you just have to witness it. It's a shame they censored it for the XBox version. I mean, come on! A NINTENDO game getting censored on XBOX!?
The N64 box says it's not suitable for anyone under 17, and that's no joke.
It's very rude and violent at some points, but always funny.

But I have to say something bad, don't I? Yes, I do.
First of all, this game's been praised for its many movie parodies, but in all honesty, they're not really parodies. A parody means you have to make fun of something you copy, but unless your idea of fun is seeing a cute Red Squirrel in place of the original actor, there's not very much parody here. Some scenes in this game follow famous movie scenes to the frame, which is nice to see, but kinda pointless, since it's not funny.
I liked the Clockwork Orange reference though.

Secondly and most importantly, aside from the lousy camera, which I have given up criticizing games for cause NOONE can get it right, is that this is, after all, when all is said and done, a Rare game, which means it CAN and WILL get EXTREMELY frustrating at some points, especially towards the end.
Really, so much so in fact, that I didn't enjoy the last, oh, 2, 3 hours or so at all. FUCK, Rare can be annoying as HELL. Basically, everything up to the Dracula level is fantastic fun, delightfully refreshing and original, but after that, it becomes really annoying. I'm thinking mostly of the "It's War" world, which is just too frustrating too believe. After that, there's another short level which is nice, and a completely non-sequitur (hahaha!) final boss battle, and a very strange and rather depressing ending. Perhaps that is also part of the parody; it's definitely the first time I've seen a platform game like this end on such a dark note.

I would very much advise anyone with an interest in platform games, a broad sense of humor, and generally into good games to play this game, because I had a total blast with it! Heck, you don't even have to bother finishing it, just experience the first 6 to 7 hours or so, and you've had the most enjoyable meat of the game.
Fantastic stuff, but not consistently so, unfortunately. The last couple of hours spoil what would otherwise have been an almost perfect 10.
Now, it's "just" a 9.3

And some samples! Yay!
The first is the main theme, the XBox version, very catchy.
The second is the battle against the Great Mighty Poo, sencored XBox version alas, couldn't find the original.
The last is Rock Solid, the original N64 version, and some really great pumping Techno at that. Enjoy!

Windy

Sloprano (Censored)

Rock Solid (original N64 synth! Incredible!"

posted by Ingen! @ 8:07 PM