- Incredible graphics
- Immensely funny dialogue, characters and story
- Team-oriented mass multiplayer battles are quite fun
- Even more censored than before
- Lots of niggling flaws still present in the single
player, and almost nothing outside of the graphics and music
have changed
- Multiplayer is a little off-putting for newbies
Be
notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out
twice weekly.
Enter
E-Mail Address Below:
Conker:
Live and Reloaded
Score: 7.8 / 10
Although it came at the end of the Nintendo
64's lifecycle, Conker's Bad Fur Day was one of the most memorable games
to come out for the system. A parody of Rare's own brand of googly-eyed
creatures and obnoxious fetch quests, players were cast into the shoes
of Conker the Squirrel, a bastard of a little rodent with a penchant for
alcohol poisoning. And here we are, five years later, and Conker makes
his return for the Xbox. Conker: Live and Reloaded, unfortunately, is
not a sequel. What you get is essentially two games in one - a greatly
enhanced version of the single player game (the "Reloaded" part) and a
completely new multiplayer segment (the "Live" part.)
The single player game begins with Conker getting impossibly blitzed and
stumbling out into a dark starry night. He awakens off in some
unfamiliar place, and the only
real goal is to get home and maybe catch up
with your furry ladyfriend Berri. There's more than a little potty humor
in the game, which is going to be an acquired taste. Some may consider
Conker's faceoff with The Great Might Poo - a gigantic blob of crap who
sings opera - to be one of the greatest highlights in all of video
gaming. Others will just roll their eyes and shove the whole thing off
as juvenile. But while there's more to the
Advertisement
humor than fart jokes, as there's a distinctly British sense of
unbridled, nonsensical chaos that permeates the whole game. The levels
are really just a series of non-sequesters, a point which is further
driven home by the throwaway plot. You see, the Panther King needs to
fix his table leg, and apparently needs a red squirrel (i.e. Conker) to
do so. The game is full of ridiculous, memorable characters - the
hopped-up scarecrow Birdy and cute yet massively annoying Private Rodent
come immediately to mind - all with funny dialogue and silly voices.
Toss in one of the strangest (yet oddly poignant) endings ever seen in a
video game, and it's easy to see that there's a lot going for Conker's
Bad Fur Day.
Conker looked reasonably decent on the N64, but Rare really went all out
to make this one of the most amazing looking games on the Xbox. All of
the environments have been completely redone, but the improvement in the
characters is astronomical. The "fur shaded" characters (Rare's new
buzzword, apparently) amplifies the fuzziness on the characters to
almost extravagant levels - it's easy to think that they may have
overdone it a little, but the overall difference is mind-blowing. The
characters have also been redesigned, for better or for worse. Conker
looks far better than he ever did, although he now dons a pair of shorts
(he was pantsless before.) The fact that this all runs at a relatively
smooth 30 FPS is quite an achievement for the Xbox, and it seems almost
regrettable that Microsoft is throwing in the towel on the system so
early, because it's clear there's a lot of power in that green monster.
The only trade-off compared to the original are the load times, but
they're relatively short and only occasionally intrusive.
Live and Reloaded has been in development for over three years, and
since the single player mode hasn't really changed much, it's easy to
rationalize that most of that time was spent polishing the graphics.
Conker was a decent enough game before, but the world of 3D platformers
has changed quite a bit since Rare ruled the roost, mostly thanks to
Sony's trio of Jak, Ratchet and Sly. The game is still loaded with
annoying fetch quests, totally obscure objectives, and poorly thought
out puzzles. Sure, some sections have been made a little bit easier
(especially at the beginning of the game), but since the designers have
had over five years to reflect on the game, you'd think they'd iron out
the bumps. The raptor in the caveman arena is still hard to control, the
lava surfing level is still likely to have you hurtling controllers,
jumping through the lasers in the war chapter is still a matter of luck
- and whose bright idea was it to make Conker push explosives through a
minefield, all while having the barrel block the camera? These
frustrating segments don't constitute a majority of the game, but it's
enough to make you more than a little irritated. And while the controls
and camera are a definite improvement over the N64 game, it still feels
a bit unpolished overall.
And the biggest controversy? Conker on the Xbox is even more censored
than the original. The N64 game bleeped out f-words, but this one
censors almost everything else. While it doesn't ruin the dialogue - in
some areas, in fact, it actually makes it a little bit funnier - but it
definitely messes up the Great Mighty Poo song. While most of the gore
has been left intact, there are a small handful of other modifications
that will probably irk fans of the original.
Of course, Rare and Microsoft don't really want you to focus too much on
the single player - if the box cover and manual are any indication, the
real point of Live and Reloaded is the multiplayer segment. The setting
is ripped from the war chapter of the single player game, which in
itself was a parody of Saving Private Ryan, and even some of the
uniforms are sly "tributes" to Halo. Borrowing heavily from Team
Fortress, there are several classes, each with their own weapons and
skill sets - Grunts carry machine guns, Sky Jockeys can fly planes, and
Seekers chop up foes with katanas. You can choose between two sides -
the SHC (the squirrels) or the Tediz (evil cyborg teddy bears), and each
map carries different objectives depending on which side you've chosen.
Some stages simply involve breaking through your opponent's defenses -
others are simple games of Capture the Flag. While it's a lot of fun,
you're not given much direction when you first start, and learning the
maps is essential to avoid looking like an idiot on Live. It's also a
shame that Rare chose to remove the old multiplayer mode entirely, which
is once again bound to annoy diehard fans of the original.
If you've already played the single player Conker, it's a little hard to
recommend paying full price for this one - while the graphical upgrade
is incredible, all you're really getting is the same thing with a bit
more censorship. And while the multiplayer is fun, it's not amazing
enough to stand on its own. But if you've never experienced Conker, the
Xbox version is unquestionably the way to go, and you're getting two
great experiences bundled together.
