Rare's 'Adult' platformer (Conkers Bad Fur Day (N64))

Member Name: johnpaul

Product:	Conkers Bad Fur Day (N64)
Date:	06/05/01 (419 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 'Adult' take on platforming, movie references, varied game styles

Disadvantages: not huge, 'Adult' humor more schoolboy

I remember a 'Conker' game popping up on the Rare release schedule a couple of years ago. 'Conker's Twelve Tales' featured an ever so cute red squirrel running around a bright, colourful world featuring a large windmill. The majority of opinion was that it looked too cute, and Rare already had this area well covered with their Banjo-Kazooie games. Rare seemed to think the same and it disappeared from the release list and their website.

'Conker's Bad Fur Day' still has the same cute red squirrel, and the same windmill, but that's roughly about all that remains from the original game. In a really quite startling move by Rare they shifted the platform into adult territory by, um, having lots of poo and a few swear words in it. While this may not seem revolutionary (and it isn't really) it certainly makes for a very entertaining game.

CBFD begins in a very familiar Rare-platformer way - that is in the graphics and the play mechanics. What isn't apparently Rare-like is the fact that Conker is very hungover after too many jars at the Cock and Plucker the night before and staggers very slowly across the play area. You must search out a hangover cure before you can progress.

Conker's standard moves are a jump, a higher jump when the jump button is pressed in conjunction with the Z button, a tail-spinning hover tp prolong a jump with pressing the jump button again, an attack with a frying pan with the A-button.

The first third is the most predictable part of the game. It's when you start having to run, and swim through lakes of poo, and then a huge turd starts singing an operetta and chucking gobs of nasty stuff at you - you know all is not as it should in a N64 platformer - let alone the foul mouthed liverpudlian dung beetles that have it in for you.

When the game comes into it's own is with the movie-references and pastiches. I wouldn't want to mention all of them to sp
oil the suprises but the 'Matrix' sequence and 'Saving Private Ryan' beach invasion scene deserve special mention because of their brilliance.

It's difficult to say whether this is actually better than their previous platforming efforts. It's shorter that most of Rare's games and the graphics seem to be more gaudy than the rich, beautiful textures of the Bear and Bird game. However, this game is less frustrating, and probably wins on the pure enjoyment stakes - it's variety of gameplay and locales makes it less repetitive. Also added is some pretty fun multiplayer games based on parts of the single-player game. A good bonus.

But where does this leave Rare with their new 'adult' angle on a traditionally kid-orientated genre' Well, anyone can enjoy the brilliance of Mario 64 despite it's lack of narrative drive and cutsey graphics, and ironically, Rare's attempt to make it 'adult' has just resulted in a lot of smutty schoolboy humour - and I heard that the sales of this game have been dissapointing, so perhaps this is the first, and last, of a peculiar genre. A collector's piece then, as well as a great way to pass a few hours - what more of an excuse do you need then?

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