It’s no wonder developer Rareware canceled their long in development title Twelve Tales: Conker 64. It was a cutesy platformer in development for the Nintendo 64, and it did little to set itself apart from the pack. It looked very similar to all the other kid friendly platformers on the console. Releasing at a time when new hardware was on the horizon would have been the kiss of death for Conker, and Rare decided to scrap the original concept and push out something quite a bit different. Instead of a kid friendly platformer they refashioned Conker to target older audiences with significantly more violence, and crude humor. Conker’s Bad Fur Day seemed like a gag game at first, but it was released to critical acclaim. I was originally skeptical but loved it. How does Conker’s Bad Fur Day hold up? Let’s take a look!
Conker is an anthropormophic red squirrel that has a bit of a drinking problem. One night while at his favorite watering hole Conker has a little too much beer and passes out on his way home. He awakens in a field inhabited by a foul mouthed scarecrow who eventually gives him some seltzer which helps our furry protagonist recover from his devastating hangover. While all of this is happening the ruler of the land, the Panther King, has run into a major problem. A leg from his table is missing thus causing his milk to spill when placed on top of it. A professor comes up with a solution to the problem; the perfect replacement leg just so happens to be a red squirrel. The king sends out his henchmen to find one. As you can guess Conker is the guy they decide to make into the missing support.
It’s a strange and over the top story, and it does the opposite of taking itself too seriously. What’s really impressive is how much voiced dialogue Rare was able to cram into this cartridge. Conker interacts with a huge variety of different characters, and all of this is through voice acting. There are some real memorable conversations here. While some miss their mark now that I’m older I found myself still laughing out loud at even the more juvenile moments. I hope you like jokes about poo, because that was clearly the developers’ favorite kind of humor. There’s even a boss character composed entirely of the stuff, and he even has a musical number about it. What’s nice is the fact that it doesn’t feel like the writers tried too hard here. The humor doesn’t feel forced. The guys at Rare must be hilarious because they did a fantastic job.
Now that we’ve addressed the elephant in the room let’s move on to gameplay. Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a 3D platformer, but offers a surprising amount of variety. As the furry anthropomorphic protagonist you run around environments dispatching foes by swinging a frying pan. In typical fashion Conker can jump, but also has the ability to spin his tail like a helicopter to reach longer distances. He can also swim and duck. You know, the usual stuff. Conker’s health is measured in chocolate bars which can be found in most environments. By default he has six of these and when they’ve run out you start the area over again. It’s pretty basic stuff, but the fundamentals are sound. The only real problem I have is with the camera. Controlling it is less fluid than in other high profile platformers of the time and it gets stuck a lot.
The main mechanic that sets Conker’s Bad Fur Day apart from other platformers of its time are the context sensitive actions. You’ll find various platforms to stand on (marked with a B) that activate a variety of different effects. Some are really basic such as blowing up a boulder blocking the path, or destroying an enemy. Others are more interactive. They allow you to do things like shoot a slingshot at incoming foes, generate a roll of toilet paper for you to throw, and more. My absolute favorite is during the Matrix spoof sequence where they active bullet time and allow Conker to fire his guns at foes in slow motion while leaping through the air. Some of these are really inventive and add a lot of uniqueness to each area in the game.
Unfortunately Conker’s Bad Fur Day does suffer from the traditional Rareware problems. For instance there’s too much item collecting sometimes. Some characters you encounter will require you to gather something nearby to continue and this can be tedious. One example happens early on when you have to collect three pieces of cheese for a rat. The cheese runs around to escape so you have to hit the pieces with your frying pan, and then slowly walk it to the destination. Problem is if you’re hit by an enemy or fall into the water you lose it and have to go back and get another one. It becomes abundantly clear that things like this were thrown in to pad the playtime. Even with these moments Conker’s Bad Fur Day is less than ten hours long which for such an expensive game is disappointing.
Rare struck gold when they threw multiplayer into Goldeneye 007, and they tried it again in Conker’s Bad Fur Day. There are several modes included here where you can compete against friends, but sadly nothing from the main campaign was integrated. Each mode is played more like a third person shooter which is kind of a departure, but it’s interesting. You have some modes which are deathmatch, others that are more like capture the flag, and there are a few other ideas used here as well. My favorite is Beach where one team plays as snipers while the other consists of unarmed characters just trying to reach the other end of the stage. Another has players as either cavemen or raptors with the former trying to capture and cook eggs from the latter. They’re all pretty fun, but it’s strange that it’s so different from the main campaign.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day is without a doubt one of the most beautiful looking Nintendo 64 games. This is all the more impressive given the fact that it doesn’t use the expansion pak. The characters all look and animate wonderfully with a lot of detail. The environments are a bit confined for a 3D platformer, but they have a lot of different moving elements to make up for this. What’s more is the fact that the framerate stays surprisingly steady even when things get hectic. My big complaint with the graphics is that the textures are blurry and muddy, but that’s kind of par for the course when it comes to Nintendo 64 games. The soundtrack is okay. Nothing is amazing but it sounds good overall. The voice work is a little muffled, but I imagine it all had to be heavily compressed.
