Though filled with frustrating moments, Conker's Bad Fur Day still comes out as a fantastic platformer.
Originally slated as a cute and cuddly platformer, Conker's Bad Fur Day took a hard turn towards the adult crowd after many complaints about the similar nature to Banjo and Donkey Kong 64. Running on the same engine and using the same in-game font, it can easily be mistaken as another cute game. But inside is a world filled with poo, blood, swearing, violence, guns, and women with freakishly big boobs.
Conker The Squirrel, apparently outgrowing racecars and magic elephants, sets out to the bar with his friends on his 21st birthday. He has a few too many and wants to go home and go to bed, but he's too drunk to know the right way. Waking up with a hangover, Conker sets out to find his bed.
While this is the main plot of the game, a few sub plots get thrown along the way. Conker's girlfriend Berri gets kidnapped, and an evil Panther King needs something to hold up his table, which is missing a leg, so he gets told that a red squirrel is the best way to make his milk stop spilling. The latter being so ridiculously stupid, you just can't help but like it.
What can leave you wondering is what a poo monster, dinosaurs, cavemen, bees, and a plethora of other characters you'll meet along the way have to do with the immediate story line. It gives the story an unhinged feeling, but at least there's plenty of variety to keep things fresh and interesting.
There are 11 chapters to go through, each with their own unique characters and problems. Most of the characters even have a lot of depth so it's nice to see a game where most of the NPC's are cardboard. Because of the drastic differences in each, the game rarely feels repetitive. That is until you get to the final few chapters, where the level of platforming drops to a bare minimum and tons of shooting takes it place. This, in practice, is a disappointment.
Throughout the game, you'll encounter plenty of plot twists. For example, a new, friendly, character is introduced that anyone can just fall in love with only to have them killed off in a very gruesome manner. It may sound bad but it's actually good because it's so unexpectedly awesome and left me saying "Oh Snap" on many occasions.
Finally, the game takes a shot at many things. It's filled with many movie and game references such as The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, and Super Mario 64 among others. It also makes fun of itself with tons of fourth wall breaking, most noticeably at the ending. Without a doubt, it's not a game to be taken seriously.
When it comes to visuals, Conker's Bad Fur Day shines brighter than any other game of its generation. What it pulls off is amazing considering the technical restraints of the N64. Environments are filled with terrific lighting and real time shadowing. The shadowing is so amazing that it can screw you up a few times while doing some basic platforming. Because unlike some other3D platformers, your shadow will most likely be stretching along the wall instead of directly under you. Resulting in miss targeted landings. There are also some cool things with the camera such as it can get cracked by bullets and splashed with water. A nice little touch.
Another amazing thing is the amount of detail to reflections. While most noticeably in the chapter that makes fun of The Matrix with the shiny floor reflecting everything beautifully, the water and even the swimmable poo not only look great but capture reflective details of Conker and his helicopter tail perfectly. It's all great for a little extra eye candy.
The framerate does stay very smooth throughout the game, though there are a few hiccups here and there but nothing terrible at all. There is a pretty bad framerate dip in the multiplayer, however, along with circle shadows. After playing the great looking single player experience after a while, the graphics in the multiplayer did get on my nerves just a little. But at least there's still that juicy, cartoony blood we've come to love.
Most characters are adorable and lovable. This is one of the rare occurrences where the characters were as least blocky as they could possibly be on the N64. Instead of big square hands, you have each finger detailed. As much as the widespread selection of characters goes, there will be a few times where you will see many repeating enemies such as cavemen, Tediz, and the bank's security guards. While it's not a huge problem, it's still a minor gripe.
Levels are very different from each other and most are very pleasing to the eye. The cute art style adds charm to the small to big levels and you might not even notice that some of them can be somewhat linear. But mostly there's many different things going on in an area so they can be fun to explore for a long time. The few cases of linearity happen in the lava hoverboarding, where you just go around the same track many times, and the Tedi fortress, where the only thing that's nice to look at are the gun and lighting physics.
Cutscenes are all done with the in-game engine, so if you're impressed with anything you see, it's all possible in the game itself. There are tons and tons of cutscenes and they tend to cut away from the gameplay unexpectedly. Thankfully, if you've already watched them, you can skip them by pressing L. They range from short to long and funny to boring so it yields in mixed results. It manages to pull all of this off without needed the expansion pak one bit. Truly impressive.
Presented in Dolby Surround Sound, Bad Fur day has some unique and awesomely catchy music. Most of it is surprisingly childish such as the Overworld, a bouncy country track which will make you want to go to Disney World and ride Splash Mountain, and the Barn Boss, a fast track with ear pleasing sounds and banjo playing. These are certainly not a turn off to the game's adult nature.
But it's not all child friendly country music. Each world has its own set of music to put you in the right mood to do what you need, some of which stand out more than others. There's the insanely addictive techno music of the Rock Solid Club and The Bank. There are even a few occasions where the characters acknowledge the existence of the music and ask it to be changed or can tell something dangerous is about to happen. But the single greatest piece of music is surely The Great Mighty Poo boss, an opera singing poo monster singing a new verse the more you make him angry. It's very unique and downright hilarious. By ear, I can never tell if music is orchestrated or just digital but it is great music, either way.
If you're a fan of cartoony sound effects from the Looney Tunes or even Mickey Mouse, you'll definitely be delighted. The game tries its best to be an X rated cartoon of the 50's with plenty of Wile E. Coyote whistles and Tom and Jerry frying pan sound effects. All fit the game like a glove. It's funny and made me smile each and every time.
To top it all off, the game has voice acting at every nook and cranny. Mostly because you can't trip over a rock without landing into a cutscene, but still, it really is a tech miracle considering the N64's cartridge capabilities. There are a few occasions where the characters sound too similar or the voice doesn't look like it would belong to the character. But there is still plenty of jokes mainly deprived of vulgar and British humor but there's a lot of jokes I never got because it rips from various sources instead of making up most of it on its own. Disappointingly enough, the audio quality of the voice acting is not the best but there's voice bubbles to aid that. Although you can tell the bubbles do not say the spoken text word for word on a few occasions.
Although Conker's Bad Fur Day is heavily cutscene oriented, there's still plenty of gameplay to be found. Controls are simple but can change depending on the type of situation that you're in. For example, sometimes the Z button is to crouch and at others it's to shoot. You use the B button to draw your weapon and the A button to jump with varying height depending on how hard your press it. These all feel fine and natural except for the context sensitive buttons, which are pads that have a "B" on them. Sometimes you'll be fiddling to get to them and pressing the B button while you're on the edge won't work. You have to be near the center. The slow swimming controls are really the only annoying thing because it leads to a drowning or getting eaten demise.
Towards the end of the game there is a heavy emphasis on shooting. It's a real disappointment considering the game is a platformer and there is little to no platforming involved. The shooting can be okay for a while but the aiming mechanic is slippery and got on my nerves. Just nudging the control stick made the reticule go very far and I lost some health because I didn't blow something's brains out in time. It is very satisfying to get the job done, though, because of the silly way a head gets blown to bits.
There's so much variety in what you have to do aside from shooting, though. There's a very fun part where you play as a bat and you have to poop on villagers and then carry them to where you can feed your vampire grandfather some blood. Another fun part is riding a dinosaur and biting a caveman king's butt cheeks. There is a bunch of things thrown in here to make you laugh such as when you have to pee on giant rocks to make them fall down a hole, and crushing a furnace's balls to defeat him. This all adds up to plain fun especially during most of the unique boss fights. It shifts gears so often and it's quite enjoyable so be prepared for anything. Deleting the cutscenes and retries, the overall gameplay is in the middle of the road when it comes to length. Not bad at all.
The single and most annoying part of the game is how much the game tries to test your patience for throwing a tantrum. It throws cheapness at you at so many points. Riding a hoverboard and crashing into a dinosaur because you're going too fast to maneuver correctly, Tediz surrounding and blowing you to smithereens because you had the nerve to open an unlocked door, worms biting you even if you were nowhere near them, getting chopped while swimming through a rotating fan. I could really go on and on but I made the point clear.
Finally, there's the multiplayer component. It's packed with so many modes so there's a lot of lasting value here. Modes range from straight up deathmatch to capture or defend the base. There's a few new and unique modes which you won't see in many games such as robbing a bank the most out of everybody and defending or capturing eggs. It's amazing and addictive and even though the slippery aiming is still present here, it doesn't kill the amount of fun you can have. There's also bots that can play along and their A.I is no pushover even on the easiest setting. Or it could be that I just suck but you may need to dig in, either way. We've all moved on the newer and more streamlined multiplayer but this sure is a gem to look back to.
If you're willing to get through a lot of frustration, Conker's Bad Fur Day is a great addition to your N64 collection. You're surely in for a good laugh depending on your sense of humor. Another great game by Rare.