Conker's Bad Fur Day Retro Review
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VOICE OVER: Ty Richardson
WRITTEN BY: Ty Richardson
Two decades ago, a game like no other hit the N64. Instead of sporting vibrant colors, it was a black box with a funny-looking squirrel on it and a few small but loud WARNING labels across it. In the years since, Conker's Bad Fur Day has garnered a cult following, being re-released on the Xbox's Rare Replay collection, as well as the Conker: Live & Reloaded remake. But which one should be considered the definitive version of the game? That's what we're going to conclude in this Retro Review!
Script written by Ty Richardson
Twenty years ago, when I was a wee boy, I took a trip with my grandma to her friend’s house when I saw an N64 game unlike any in my collection. Instead of sporting vibrant colors, it was a black box with a funny-looking squirrel on it and a few small, but loud WARNING labels on it. “What could be so bad about a cartoon that makes it only suitable for adults?”, my six-year-old self wondered, unaware of shows like “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” - adult animated shows that would slowly ignite the spark of mature cartoons. As I had gotten older, I found it harder and harder to track down a copy of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” to call my own. The closest I got was a physical copy of “Conker: Live & Reloaded” I bought when I was in college, and it wasn’t the greatest from what I can remember. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I needed to sell it off because, you know - college kid problems. However, if you check out our YouTube Story posts, you might be aware that I recently got my hands on an Xbox Series S. And guess what was the first purchase I made - the “Rare Replay” collection! So, today, we’ll be looking at the two most commercially available versions of Conker’s adventure: the original game on “Rare Replay” and the Xbox remake, “Conker: Live & Reloaded”!
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of the internet! My name is Ty with MojoPlays, and this is a Retro Review of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day”!
Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos!
And hey - I’ve been out of the Xbox game for nearly a decade, and I need more games on my Series S. So, give me a follow on Twitter - @GhostRyderTyler - and let me know which Xbox games I should check out!
“Conker’s Bad Fur Day” starts out like any game meant for good boys and girls - a squirrel calls up his girlfriend and stands her up so he can party it up with his friends. However, the little guy gets incredibly drunk and winds up lost while trying to find his way home. Unbeknownst to him, the Panther King is on the search for a red squirrel to serve as a leg for his milk table. If Conker is to get back home to Berri, he’ll have to overcome and outwit angry pitchforks, profane cogs, and of course, one massive mound of singing poo.
Yes, the entire game is ridiculous from start to finish, and even today, I was still laughing out loud despite knowing most of the jokes. After one playthrough, you won’t ever forget about the drunk scarecrow Birdy, the foul-mouthed paint can and paintbrush antagonizing a pitchfork, or the furnace with certain parts of him “polished to the Nth degree”. While we did put “Conker” on our list of Top 10 Politically Incorrect Games, I personally believe the game still holds up with its humor, as juvenile as others may find it.
What astonished me most, however, was how “Conker” manages to serve as a shining example of what comedy games should be. Across the decades, we’ve seen games that perform comedy like “Sam & Max” and various titles from Double Fine Entertainment. Humor is nothing new in video games. So, what makes “Conker” so special? Well, it’s about how the game incorporates comedy into its design.
As you explore the world, you’ll come across obstacles that’ll require you to utilize what Birdy calls a “context-sensitive” area. Basically, it’s a spot on the floor marked for the “B” button, and it’ll trigger a special action depending on the situation at hand. For starters, one “context-sensitive” puzzle might cause Conker to pull out sharp knives, indicating that you’ll need to throw them at something. Another might force our squirrel to turn into an anvil and crash down on whatever’s beneath him. It’s a concept you’d find in something like, say, “Looney Tunes” - characters conveniently pulling items out of nowhere to use for their own personal gain. It is comedy through design, humor incorporated into the gameplay, and the way it carries out its puzzles is unlike anything you’ll find in other comedy games.
Equally impressive is the character animation. (Hey, I’ve brought this up in, like, three other videos recently - you can’t fault me for bringing this up again.) Conker boasts a wide amount of expressions, both facial and gesture-wise. This was kind of the first time developer Rare had gone all-out on the animation. Just take a look at the other 3D titles they developed prior to this. “Banjo-Kazooie”, its sequel, “Jet Force Gemini”, and “GoldenEye 007” didn’t feature the same level of animation we see here. The Nintendo 64 also didn’t have a lot of titles that got this complex. So, it’s kind of cool to see that they somehow managed to make this work without setting the N64 on fire.
Clearly, “Conker” has resonated with me as it has with many folks who grew up towards the end of the N64 era. As much as I loved my time with the alcoholic rodent, there were two chapters in particular I could not stand - “Spooky” and “It’s War”. The “Spooky” chapter is known for turning the game into a third-person shooter with “It’s War” going almost full-on “Call of Duty”. And let me tell you, these controls were horrific! You know how in shooters like “Call of Duty”, we have very specific control schemes? Right trigger to shoot, left to ADS, left analog to move, and right analog to look and aim? Well, in “Conker”, left trigger is to shoot, but if you want some legitimate accuracy, you’ll have to press the RIGHT trigger to enter third- or first-person mode. THEN, you look and aim with the LEFT analog and move with the RIGHT analog. In case you didn’t get all that, you’re basically forced to play a wonky, reversed version of controls found in modern shooters, even in the “Rare Replay” version of “Conker”. I can’t even begin to imagine how insanely awkward it was to play this with an N64 controller! Turret sections are no better as you’ll have no visual indication of whether bullets are shooting out of your gun, and the camera controls make everything about as disorienting as a Michael Bay flick - constantly moving way farther than you wanted it to, and by the time you’ve got it where you need it, the action has already come and gone. Or in this case, you’re freakin’ dead.
Also, screw the worms for being unreadable and bringing gameplay to a screeching halt, screw the barrel segments for another moment of weird controls, and the trip mines!? Don’t get me started! We may as well slap a bunch of flashy WARNING labels of our own if we go any further about the trip mines!
“But, Ty, how can you praise the game if two meaty sections of it are agitating to deal with?” As much grief as I have about “Spooky” and “It’s War”, these two chapters do have a place in the game as they not only present their own comedic “context sensitive” puzzles, but they also present moments that show Conker in a different light, and these critical moments are part of what makes the ending so exceptional. Though, I’d rather not get into that in case someone declares plot points of a 20-year-old game as “spoilers”. (Yeah, I know you’re out there!)
Overall, the original game was an absolute treat, though I’d rather not play it again for another several months or even a year. And yet, I decided to play through the entire journey again, but this time, through “Conker: Live & Reloaded”. This is a remake that has appeared on WatchMojo lists several times in the past - not once has it been under a positive light. Why is that? Well, the obvious answer is that it isn’t the most visually appealing, even by 2005 standards. Some characters did benefit from the upgraded graphics and improved textures, but furry characters like Conker look as though they got too close to the electrical outlet. And then, there’s the increased censorship of swear words that are arguably not all that bad. Wait, this IS an M-rated game! Why is there censoring here? Well, this was supposedly due to a fear that retailers would refuse to sell the game.
https://conker.fandom.com/wiki/Conker:_Live_%26_Reloaded#:~:text=Sometime%20during%20the%20development%20of,in%20its%20fully%20uncensored%20form.
Of course, I found a few more problems aside from character models. For starters, the entire game places a vignette on the screen, which does nothing to enhance the game and everything to make it feel as though you’re squinting and widening your eyes at the same time. Why do the cutscenes get to be presented in their shining glory while I’m sitting here wondering if I have low blood pressure? It just doesn’t make any sense.
What surprised me even more was how “Live & Reloaded” runs so painfully bad in several areas. More often than not, I was experiencing lag even in not-so-busy areas. There’s even a boss fight that would crash the game upon getting hit by an enemy, forcing me to get through the entire boss fight unscathed. I succeeded, but I wasn’t happy.
After experiencing these problems, I was embracing the worst out of the “Spooky” and “It’s War” chapters. I still had some problematic moments, most notably the worms and barrel segments again. But shockingly, “Live & Reloaded” almost completely fixes my problems with these chapters! Bat Conker controls way better than he did in the original game, shooting controls are far more intuitive and responsive, and turret sections were no longer an ordeal. The remake even fixes the camera in other sections of the game, giving the player more freedom to adjust angles to make platforming easier. So, hey - “Live & Reloaded” isn’t a total trainwreck after all!
So, after having played both versions of--hm? I’m forgetting something? Oh, yes, the one mode I don’t often bring up in my other reviews - multiplayer. Believe it or not, I actually did try out the multiplayer as the original and remake do differ dramatically here. The original “Conker” came with seven distinct game modes - Beach, Heist, War, Race, Raptor, Tank, and Deathmatch. Even when playing against bots, they were all really fun to play, and I do plan on playing this with friends in the future.
“Live & Reloaded”, on the other hand, completely axes the diverse selection of modes in favor of doing what every shooter was doing - team-based deathmatch and Capture the Flag with character classes that don’t do much to stand out. And no, there is no free-for-all option. What’s made this feature even more obsolete is the focus on online play. “Live & Reloaded” had its servers pulled in 2010, which means you’ll just have to play with bots or do local multiplayer. But why play the “Live & Reloaded”, which only has the basics, when the original has a handful of other modes to play?
All in all, it’s pretty clear which version of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” you should play. The original still exceeds expectations and delivers a timeless story full of wit, charm, and a jarring darker turn. I will never look forward to reaching those two aforementioned chapters when I revisit the game, but the game is still a hell of an experience. As for “Live & Reloaded”, it isn’t remarkable when compared to its predecessor. Sure, it fixes a handful of things, but it also dampens the experience with how it tries to accentuate the visuals in the wrong ways. Plus, crashing! Personally, it’s not one of the worst remakes I’ve played, but I can understand why we’ve put it on so many lists regarding bad remakes. If you do play “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” and want to experience “Live & Reloaded” for yourself, then by all means - I would encourage you just to experience it for yourself. However, don’t be surprised if you find yourself booting up “Rare Replay” just to return to the original. I know I will be! Happy twentieth anniversary, Conker!
Now, Great Mighty Poo - play us out!
“I am the Great Mighty Poo,
and I’m going to throw my $#!@ at you!
A huge supply of tish
comes from my chocolate starfish.
How about some scat,
you little twat!?”
Conker's Bad Fur Day Retro Review
Twenty years ago, when I was a wee boy, I took a trip with my grandma to her friend’s house when I saw an N64 game unlike any in my collection. Instead of sporting vibrant colors, it was a black box with a funny-looking squirrel on it and a few small, but loud WARNING labels on it. “What could be so bad about a cartoon that makes it only suitable for adults?”, my six-year-old self wondered, unaware of shows like “The Simpsons”, “Family Guy”, and “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” - adult animated shows that would slowly ignite the spark of mature cartoons. As I had gotten older, I found it harder and harder to track down a copy of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” to call my own. The closest I got was a physical copy of “Conker: Live & Reloaded” I bought when I was in college, and it wasn’t the greatest from what I can remember. Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before I needed to sell it off because, you know - college kid problems. However, if you check out our YouTube Story posts, you might be aware that I recently got my hands on an Xbox Series S. And guess what was the first purchase I made - the “Rare Replay” collection! So, today, we’ll be looking at the two most commercially available versions of Conker’s adventure: the original game on “Rare Replay” and the Xbox remake, “Conker: Live & Reloaded”!
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen of the internet! My name is Ty with MojoPlays, and this is a Retro Review of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day”!
Before we begin, we publish new videos all week long, so be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos!
And hey - I’ve been out of the Xbox game for nearly a decade, and I need more games on my Series S. So, give me a follow on Twitter - @GhostRyderTyler - and let me know which Xbox games I should check out!
“Conker’s Bad Fur Day” starts out like any game meant for good boys and girls - a squirrel calls up his girlfriend and stands her up so he can party it up with his friends. However, the little guy gets incredibly drunk and winds up lost while trying to find his way home. Unbeknownst to him, the Panther King is on the search for a red squirrel to serve as a leg for his milk table. If Conker is to get back home to Berri, he’ll have to overcome and outwit angry pitchforks, profane cogs, and of course, one massive mound of singing poo.
Yes, the entire game is ridiculous from start to finish, and even today, I was still laughing out loud despite knowing most of the jokes. After one playthrough, you won’t ever forget about the drunk scarecrow Birdy, the foul-mouthed paint can and paintbrush antagonizing a pitchfork, or the furnace with certain parts of him “polished to the Nth degree”. While we did put “Conker” on our list of Top 10 Politically Incorrect Games, I personally believe the game still holds up with its humor, as juvenile as others may find it.
What astonished me most, however, was how “Conker” manages to serve as a shining example of what comedy games should be. Across the decades, we’ve seen games that perform comedy like “Sam & Max” and various titles from Double Fine Entertainment. Humor is nothing new in video games. So, what makes “Conker” so special? Well, it’s about how the game incorporates comedy into its design.
As you explore the world, you’ll come across obstacles that’ll require you to utilize what Birdy calls a “context-sensitive” area. Basically, it’s a spot on the floor marked for the “B” button, and it’ll trigger a special action depending on the situation at hand. For starters, one “context-sensitive” puzzle might cause Conker to pull out sharp knives, indicating that you’ll need to throw them at something. Another might force our squirrel to turn into an anvil and crash down on whatever’s beneath him. It’s a concept you’d find in something like, say, “Looney Tunes” - characters conveniently pulling items out of nowhere to use for their own personal gain. It is comedy through design, humor incorporated into the gameplay, and the way it carries out its puzzles is unlike anything you’ll find in other comedy games.
Equally impressive is the character animation. (Hey, I’ve brought this up in, like, three other videos recently - you can’t fault me for bringing this up again.) Conker boasts a wide amount of expressions, both facial and gesture-wise. This was kind of the first time developer Rare had gone all-out on the animation. Just take a look at the other 3D titles they developed prior to this. “Banjo-Kazooie”, its sequel, “Jet Force Gemini”, and “GoldenEye 007” didn’t feature the same level of animation we see here. The Nintendo 64 also didn’t have a lot of titles that got this complex. So, it’s kind of cool to see that they somehow managed to make this work without setting the N64 on fire.
Clearly, “Conker” has resonated with me as it has with many folks who grew up towards the end of the N64 era. As much as I loved my time with the alcoholic rodent, there were two chapters in particular I could not stand - “Spooky” and “It’s War”. The “Spooky” chapter is known for turning the game into a third-person shooter with “It’s War” going almost full-on “Call of Duty”. And let me tell you, these controls were horrific! You know how in shooters like “Call of Duty”, we have very specific control schemes? Right trigger to shoot, left to ADS, left analog to move, and right analog to look and aim? Well, in “Conker”, left trigger is to shoot, but if you want some legitimate accuracy, you’ll have to press the RIGHT trigger to enter third- or first-person mode. THEN, you look and aim with the LEFT analog and move with the RIGHT analog. In case you didn’t get all that, you’re basically forced to play a wonky, reversed version of controls found in modern shooters, even in the “Rare Replay” version of “Conker”. I can’t even begin to imagine how insanely awkward it was to play this with an N64 controller! Turret sections are no better as you’ll have no visual indication of whether bullets are shooting out of your gun, and the camera controls make everything about as disorienting as a Michael Bay flick - constantly moving way farther than you wanted it to, and by the time you’ve got it where you need it, the action has already come and gone. Or in this case, you’re freakin’ dead.
Also, screw the worms for being unreadable and bringing gameplay to a screeching halt, screw the barrel segments for another moment of weird controls, and the trip mines!? Don’t get me started! We may as well slap a bunch of flashy WARNING labels of our own if we go any further about the trip mines!
“But, Ty, how can you praise the game if two meaty sections of it are agitating to deal with?” As much grief as I have about “Spooky” and “It’s War”, these two chapters do have a place in the game as they not only present their own comedic “context sensitive” puzzles, but they also present moments that show Conker in a different light, and these critical moments are part of what makes the ending so exceptional. Though, I’d rather not get into that in case someone declares plot points of a 20-year-old game as “spoilers”. (Yeah, I know you’re out there!)
Overall, the original game was an absolute treat, though I’d rather not play it again for another several months or even a year. And yet, I decided to play through the entire journey again, but this time, through “Conker: Live & Reloaded”. This is a remake that has appeared on WatchMojo lists several times in the past - not once has it been under a positive light. Why is that? Well, the obvious answer is that it isn’t the most visually appealing, even by 2005 standards. Some characters did benefit from the upgraded graphics and improved textures, but furry characters like Conker look as though they got too close to the electrical outlet. And then, there’s the increased censorship of swear words that are arguably not all that bad. Wait, this IS an M-rated game! Why is there censoring here? Well, this was supposedly due to a fear that retailers would refuse to sell the game.
https://conker.fandom.com/wiki/Conker:_Live_%26_Reloaded#:~:text=Sometime%20during%20the%20development%20of,in%20its%20fully%20uncensored%20form.
Of course, I found a few more problems aside from character models. For starters, the entire game places a vignette on the screen, which does nothing to enhance the game and everything to make it feel as though you’re squinting and widening your eyes at the same time. Why do the cutscenes get to be presented in their shining glory while I’m sitting here wondering if I have low blood pressure? It just doesn’t make any sense.
What surprised me even more was how “Live & Reloaded” runs so painfully bad in several areas. More often than not, I was experiencing lag even in not-so-busy areas. There’s even a boss fight that would crash the game upon getting hit by an enemy, forcing me to get through the entire boss fight unscathed. I succeeded, but I wasn’t happy.
After experiencing these problems, I was embracing the worst out of the “Spooky” and “It’s War” chapters. I still had some problematic moments, most notably the worms and barrel segments again. But shockingly, “Live & Reloaded” almost completely fixes my problems with these chapters! Bat Conker controls way better than he did in the original game, shooting controls are far more intuitive and responsive, and turret sections were no longer an ordeal. The remake even fixes the camera in other sections of the game, giving the player more freedom to adjust angles to make platforming easier. So, hey - “Live & Reloaded” isn’t a total trainwreck after all!
So, after having played both versions of--hm? I’m forgetting something? Oh, yes, the one mode I don’t often bring up in my other reviews - multiplayer. Believe it or not, I actually did try out the multiplayer as the original and remake do differ dramatically here. The original “Conker” came with seven distinct game modes - Beach, Heist, War, Race, Raptor, Tank, and Deathmatch. Even when playing against bots, they were all really fun to play, and I do plan on playing this with friends in the future.
“Live & Reloaded”, on the other hand, completely axes the diverse selection of modes in favor of doing what every shooter was doing - team-based deathmatch and Capture the Flag with character classes that don’t do much to stand out. And no, there is no free-for-all option. What’s made this feature even more obsolete is the focus on online play. “Live & Reloaded” had its servers pulled in 2010, which means you’ll just have to play with bots or do local multiplayer. But why play the “Live & Reloaded”, which only has the basics, when the original has a handful of other modes to play?
All in all, it’s pretty clear which version of “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” you should play. The original still exceeds expectations and delivers a timeless story full of wit, charm, and a jarring darker turn. I will never look forward to reaching those two aforementioned chapters when I revisit the game, but the game is still a hell of an experience. As for “Live & Reloaded”, it isn’t remarkable when compared to its predecessor. Sure, it fixes a handful of things, but it also dampens the experience with how it tries to accentuate the visuals in the wrong ways. Plus, crashing! Personally, it’s not one of the worst remakes I’ve played, but I can understand why we’ve put it on so many lists regarding bad remakes. If you do play “Conker’s Bad Fur Day” and want to experience “Live & Reloaded” for yourself, then by all means - I would encourage you just to experience it for yourself. However, don’t be surprised if you find yourself booting up “Rare Replay” just to return to the original. I know I will be! Happy twentieth anniversary, Conker!
Now, Great Mighty Poo - play us out!
“I am the Great Mighty Poo,
and I’m going to throw my $#!@ at you!
A huge supply of tish
comes from my chocolate starfish.
How about some scat,
you little twat!?”
