Conker's Bad Fur Day

Oh dear, why I haven't gotten around to mentioning this game, I will never know. 

I always remember enjoying games that were slightly rude and tongue-in-cheek when I was a kid: I blame experiences like the toilet boss in Llamatron 2112. And while I never actually owned an N64 as a kid and with most friends preferring to own games like Starfox, Goldeneye and Mariokart, I never had a chance to play this in the way it was intended. This may also be because the game also required the expensive RAM upgrade for the N64 as well! Anyway, it was only when I got into the emulation scene as a teenager and got my hands on anything I could that I came across Project64 and the rest is history.

Conker's Bad Fur Day is an over-the-top action platformer with bad language, rude jokes and loads of other witty bits to reward successful play and entertain. The plot features the story of one red squirrel called Conker, who wakes up after a heavy night of drinking with some buddies who are being shipped off to fight a war to find that he is hungover, has forgotten all his abilities and generally needs to go to bed. Much to his chagrin, he finds that his girl has been kidnapped and that the world + dog seems to need his intervention to solve tasks, earn money and get past challenges. Aside from this, the king of the realm is annoyed that his nightly glass of milk keeps falling off his nightstand (a four legged stool which only has three legs) and his royal professor diagnoses that it is because a red squirrel is needed to plug the gap - guess where he's going to find a red squirrel?

Seriously, you cannot make this plot up.

A great example of a game with an original idea that never takes itself too seriously and remains fun, Conker's Bad Fur Day is just a brilliant gaming experience. There are movie references abound, including Saving Private Ryan, The Matrix, Jaws, Alien and Terminator all covered at some point, with anti-gravity chocolate health pickups, loads of inneundo, plenty of gore and scat jokes, greg the grim reaper, a frying pan attack, swearing cogs and plenty more bizarre characters and set pieces to enjoy. The music itself is well made cartoony fare, with enough variety to work with the different situations and areas of the game. It's perfect for the whole experience 

Some of the more original songs in the soundtrack are absolutely hysterical. Case in point: The Great Mighty Poo

Microsoft saw fit to rerelease the title for the Xbox under the name of Conker: Reloaded, which is pretty much just a graphical update as far as I can tell, but either way if you haven't had a chance to play this title and are familiar with the movie references, I would definitely suggest you try this.