Conker: Live and Reloaded Review

Conker: Live and Reloaded is actually two full featured games in one. The Live part is an excellent third-person-shooter deathmatch game that can be played splitscreen as well as on Xbox Live. The Reloaded part is a remake of the N64 classic, Conker’s Bad Fur Day. There is a lot of gameplay tucked into this title, and even though both the single and multiplayer have some issues, Conker: Live and Reloaded is still definitely a lot of fun and is worth playing.

Unique Brand of Humor

Back when it first appeared on the N64, Conker’s Bad Fur Day really pushed the envelope as far as taking advantage of the “M” rating. The game was filled with swearing, toilet humor, extreme blood and gore, and sexual innuendo and it all was really unlike anything we had seen before in a videogame. What made everything even funnier was that the game featured a cute bushy tailed squirrel and evil teddy bears. It was all really, really funny back then and it was interesting simply because we hadn’t seen anything like it.

These days, after titles such as BMX XXX, the Grand Theft Autos, NARC, Leisure Suit Larry, etc., the naughty humor of Conker doesn’t have nearly the same impact it once did. A lot of it is still funny, but the humor and well earned “M” rating aren’t as cutting edge as they used to be. Without the aura of being so risqué around it, the gameplay in Conker (the single-player, at least) isn’t nearly as good as you probably remember it.

Gameplay

The story follows Conker the squirrel after a long night of drinking as he tries to make his way home but gets lost. You meet a number of strange characters along the way (including a giant singing pile of poo …) and hilarity ensues.

The gameplay is typical 3D platformer at the beginning but transitions to third-person-shooter at the end. The platforming bits are solid, if not a bit simplistic, and there really aren’t too many moves to learn other than jumping, hovering, and smacking enemies around. What makes Conker stand out is that rather than send you on fetch quests to find all of the items you need, the game instead uses “B button” pads that are context sensitive. That means, basically, that it gives you whatever you need at that point in time such as a slingshot or turning you into an anvil along with much more. The gameplay isn’t perfect as there are some camera issues and the controls aren’t always as responsive as they should be, but it is still fun. Like I said, though, it is a bit simplistic and can’t really match up to more modern adventure games such as Psychonauts.

Late in the game you get to take on some third-person-shooter levels and these are remarkably well done and significantly better than the platforming levels. These levels have movie themes such as a Saving Private Ryan or The Matrix. Even though the movie references aren’t as hip as they were a few years ago, it all still works out very well and the shooter gameplay is very solid and well put together.

So what is different between the original and the Reloaded version of Conker? Well, not too much. Some items have been moved around and some of the more frustrating sections of levels have been redone or cut out altogether. The graphics have been updated (obviously) so the worlds are filled with a lot more detail and feel more alive than before. I do want to say that the game is infinitely more playable now than it was on the N64 since you can actually see what you are doing now and the game runs at a consistent framerate. Also, the controls are a lot sharper. The downside is that there seems to be a lot of loading going on, but the load times are brief.

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