Game:

Conker: Live & Reloaded (2005)

Duration: 12:44

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Ahh... Conker. Developed by Rare (or Rareware) and originally intended to be another Nintendo mainstay starring another cutesy character among so many already under Nintendo's arsenal, it seemed like he was destined to be another "Me Too" character. He first appeared as a selectable driver in the great N64 racing game, Diddy Kong Racing, and later appeared in his first game, "Conker's Pocket Tales" for the Game Boy Color. In these games, he was portrayed as another light-hearted fellow and was originally going to appear on the N64 in the game "Twelve Tales: Conker 64" (he originally appeared in 1997 at E3, where his N64 outing was called "Conker's Quest"). He seemed like he was doomed to follow in the footsteps of Mario and Donkey Kong and Kirby and Banjo (which there's nothing wrong with that), but something strange happened: He didn't.

No, Conker would not remain his innocent self. As the game was deemed too similar to Banjo Kazooie, Twelve Tales: Conker 64 was massively changed into the cult masterpiece known as "Conker's Bad Fur Day", a game filled with so much tomfoolery, visual detail, impressive spoken dialogue, graphic humor and well-illustrated satire not to mention it achieved several milestones for the family-friendly N64 that it would go down as one of the best games ever spawned on a Nintendo console, much more the N64. It wasn't exactly a commercial success for Rare, but it's one of those games that seems to get better with age, as few games even today are as raunchy or funny as this, and it's packaged together with a perfectly playable game too, complete with multiplayer modes you and your friends can lose sleep over. It's technically a stupid game, but essentially a brilliant one.

Well, Rare and Nintendo generated some bad blood which caused Conker to see a change in venue; Conker's Bad Fur Day was remade several years later for Xbox under the name "Conker: Live & Reloaded". It was basically the same game except much more detailed visually (to an extent), had minor changes in the beginning of the game (going off of the assumption that you played the N64 original), a different approach to the multiplayer (it could've been better), but most importantly, the dialogue was changed. Xbox and Rare shocked the world when they revealed that it would be MORE censored than the N64 game, which is a testament to just how epic the original was (especially when you consider it was developed on a Nintendo system).

As someone who (for the most part) enjoyed the original, the nuances in things like the dialogue and character expressions was hard to accept, as I found that to be the best part of the original. This isn't to say the game is bad (it's a good game), but that I enjoyed the original more. In the game, you play as "Conker the Red Squirrel", who is just at a bar hanging with his buddies when he has too much to drink and has a major hangover, straying so far that he can't find his way home. Now you're on a journey to get home while (usually unwillingly) helping people in exchange for information or cash and inadvertently fending off the big bad evil of the kingdom. Along the way, you mainly accomplish your tasks by using "context sensitive" pads which usually give you exactly what you need at the time (kinda like in a cartoon), though this aspect is surprisingly a little more varied than it sounds on the surface and you need to solve puzzles or use clever strategies to defeat bosses.

The game isn't very long (though sufficient for the N64 which was plagued with lengthy collect-a-thon titles) and the Xbox version will seem less appealing these days (I don't know if you can still play multiplayer live on it), but it should be pretty cheap these days. It's supposed to be compatible with the Xbox 360 as well. We have two intro videos and a game sample. Enjoy.

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