Conker: Live and Reloaded for Xbox

Jonathan Lavigne

Editor-in-Chief

The gaming industry has seen many repeats in the past. It can sometimes be cyclical where every few years, a genre of video game comes out on the shelf more often than not. After Halo spread like a fire storm onto the gaming market, knockoffs filled the shelves looking to rake in some of its glory. But Halo was not original, not in the very least. Whether cloning Doom into Quake into Halo, sometimes it's just a lack of imagination that seems to hinder the industry. Then in 2001, Rare Ltd, released a little game called Conker's Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64 (N64). And that's where the story ended.

The game died a quiet death, being released just before the unveiling of Nintendo's Gamecube. The hype that should have happened never did. But for those who did play it, and there was at least a few dozen, it was an eye opener to what games could be. Now, fast forward five years to where the game makes a return on a new system, the Xbox.

Conker: Live and Reloaded (as it has been re-titled for Xbox) follows the adventures of Conker, a rowdy little bugger of a squirrel who enjoys drinking far too much. After a night on a bender, he must make his way back home to his girlfriend, Berri. Being way too drunk and incoherent, he gets lost and passes out before reaching his doorstep. Encountering along the way: giant breasted sunflowers, opera singing mountains of poop, butt biting dinosaurs, a league of zombies straight out of a George Romero flick, and war against the evil Tediz army, Conker has his work cut out for him. With you in control, you must make sure that you reach the ending, which is revealed by a glimpse into the future intro. You, as Conker, will be the King of the land.

The good

This is probably one of the most visually stunning games I have seen for the Xbox. At first I was annoyed by the fact that every strand of hair on his furry little tail was detailed. After playing the game for a few hours, I got quickly immersed into the game and its impressive graphics. When fighting the zombie armada in later levels, you almost feel the need to reach out for a bottle of Windex to wipe of the screen to see where you are aiming. The detail, which at first seemed to be just too distracting, is probably what allowed me to appreciate the game better than the first time. The game looked and felt more immersive due to its better graphics.

The scattered storyline where every chapter is a different story, with different goals made the game more interesting. You didn't feel like you were just playing the same level with different enemies, but a series of progressively more challenging chapters. Shooting zombies with a shotgun in one level, the next peeing on flamed creatures to extinguish them. By relying on variety rather than gimmickry, the game keeps the player wondering what the heck will happen next. Each level has its own soundtrack, removing the headache inducing over-repeated-ness-syndrome.

The bad

This is not a remake. This is not a sequel. This is the same game as five years ago where instead of swinging a frying pan as a weapon, you swing a baseball bat with a few nails stuck into it for effect. The developers even poke fun at it in the beginning of the game when you try hitting the first enemy with the aforementioned frying pan, nothing happens. The enemy, a giant stone gargoyle just laughs at you, asking you if you expected the game to be exactly as it was before. Conker in response asks the developers to knock off the changes and keep it the way it was. I guess they listened.

A few minor glitches and bugs in the visual and graphics department; disappearing scenery, objects out of view and weird camera angles. The sound cut off slightly during some parts of the game, not much to write home about, but can be problematic at times. The one issue that makes this game so darn frustrating is the absolute linearity to the game. If you don't do this and that in the precise order, you will never make it out of here alive.

The game was way too short, I clocked in from beginning to end in about 20 hours. The game features an abysmal Xbox Live connectivity with little or not much to offer.

The verdict

This is a great game for the poop and drunken humor crowd. Sophomoric humor is in vast abundance, and when you finish the game once, you get to play again in potty mouth mode where all the curse words are not bleeped out anymore. Clearly not a game for your little nephews or nieces who come over on the weekend, their parents might want to strangle you after they hear the little tykes repeating some of the lines of the famous opera singing poop (which I will spare you with here since this is, after all, a family publication.) The game provides ample variety in gameplay to distract even the most A.D.D. addled stoner. The difficulty level is medium to low enough to keep even the most casual of gamers entertained. Not having to keep doing the exact same thing over and over again kills off all the deja vu that some games seem to rely on way too much. It's good, it's original and it's worth giving it a shot.