Dylan Del Rio
Conker’s Bad Fur Day: Foul mouthed fun
In the late 90s, Early 2000s the game company Rareware was pumping out quality title after quality title for the Nintendo 64. From Goldeneye, Diddy to Kong Racing, to Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie Rareware was one of the few second party developers who helped carry the support of the N64 during the fifth generations consoles. Near the end of the Nintendo 64’s life span Rareware released one last game for the system, Conker’s Bad Fur Day a 3d platformer that was visually similar to Banjo Kazooie. However unlike the majority of their other games Conker was not child friendly, instead it went in a more mature direction featuring explicit violence, swearing, and an incredibly crass sense of humor. While it did not sell that well it has since become something of a cult classic that is noted for it’s drastic departure from other games featuring cute animals as their mascots.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day revolves around the titular character, a red squirrel who ends up lost after a night of binge drinking. Throughout the game he tries to get home to his girlfriend but is constantly roped into solving the problems of several characters he encounters. The game is primarily a 3-d platformer, Conker has the ability to jump and use his tail as a makeshift propeller to keep himself in the air for a few seconds. Early on in the game he gets a frying pan, which he uses as a weapon through the majority of the game. He can regain health by eating “anti gravity” chocolate that’s scattered across the game’s levels. One major recurring gameplay mechanic are the “Context sensitive” areas that are usually marked by the letter B. Pressing B in these areas gives Conker an item or ability that helps him progress such as a slingshot or a bottle of whiskey. The goal of each level is to collect wads of money which is usually done by either exploring or assisting a non-playable characters. Occasionally the game introduces other elements such as riding a mount, racing on a hoverboard, and even gunplay. Some of these changes are welcomed, while others are more of a pain then anything else.
The main selling point of the game is it’s humor. Despite being the main character Conker is not exactly a noble hero. He’s snide, greedy, and views most of the other characters with open contempt. The way he reacts to his situations is rather entertaining and despite his prickly personality he comes off as one of the more sane characters in this game. Most of the characters he interacts with are just as unpleasant or arrogant, ranging from a talking paint can, a shrill queen bee, a snobby catfish, and a bunch of idiotic cavemen. Some of the highlights of the game comedy wise include Conker confronting a cog with two different personalities, meeting a squeaky voiced Grim Reaper, and a boss fight with a giant monster made of feces that sings opera during the fight. The game also features various parodies of films including A Clockwork Orange, Saving Private Ryan, The Terminator, and The Matrix. While some of these spoofs go on a little to long in my opinion most of them are very entertaining especially the ones that actually are implemented into the gameplay. There are some sticking points with the writing though, while I liked the subplot with the Cog it leads to an uncomfortable scene where it is implied he rapes his female associates which felt out of place, I think because while there are sexual jokes in the game it usually just revolves around wordplay and/or double meanings rather then sexual violence. Also there are several parts in the game where you have to do a tedious task which Conker notes is annoying. Those kinds of jokes just annoy me, it’s just saying “man this section is annoying am I right?” while you still have to do it.
Gameplay wise the game is mostly solid. As I mentioned before it is mostly a 3-D platformer and for the most part Conker controls well. The only major problem I had is while running Conker usually skids to a halt before completely stopping, most of the time it is not an issue but during certain levels this caused me to fall, usually resulting in my death. Besides that the majority of the first half of the game is really entertaining with the only major hang ups being the underwater levels, Clang’s lair and U bend blues mainly because you have to focus on getting through various deathtraps while also making sure you don’t run out of air and die. My major complaints are reserved for the second half of the game starting with chapter 5 “Spooky.” During this part of the game you are given a gun that replaces the frying pan as your main weapon. The enemies in this chapter are zombies that can only be killed via a bullet to the head. The problem is you can only aim for the head while in third person mode and the control is extremely loose, with the slightest wrong movement ruining what could have been a killing shot. Also when your in third person Conker can’t move at all, so it is very possible you’ll either shoot a zombie, and while you reload it damages you, or you aiming at one zombie when another blindsides you while your view is restricted causing you to panic and miss your shot.
These complaints also carry on to the final two chapters but it is slightly remedied since those enemies don’t require headshots to kill. Even then the “It’s war!” chapter features an infuriating moment when you have to make it back to the boat before the Tediz (Nazi Teddy bears haha) base blows up. This part requires multiple moments of “do or die” platforming and shooting where one screw up will cost you a life. The absolute worst part is the final dash across the beach, where you have to deal with Tediz armed with rocket launchers that will most likely kill you in one hit. While you can also use your rocket launcher to take them out first the problems with the aiming on top of the time limit make it too panic inducing and time wasting to feasibly do.
Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a rather odd game in my opinion and I’m not referring to the mature tone. Half of it is a really fun platformer on the same level of quality as most of Rareware’s other games while the other half are clearly the developers straining to add new gameplay features solely for the sake of variety. The charm of the characters and humor is enough for me to tolerate it but there where several parts near the end where I considered just stopping. It is a game I think platformer fans should definitely try but also should expect their patience to be tested and tempered by the end
