Retro Corner: Conker’s Bad Fur Day

……..hehehehehehehe.

So, here we are, the first entry into the Retro Corner. I’d say this is a pretty good choice. Before you keep reading though, I’d like to clarify something; the purpose of the Retro Corner isn’t to review a game and give it a rating. The Retro Corner exists to pay homage to the classics that time forgot.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day is one of the most unusual gems of the Nintendo 64′s history. Is it a good game? Yes. Is it graphically pleasing? For that time period, yes. So, why do I say unusual then? Conker’s Bad Fur Day is known for something else; it’s pure intent of slapping the cutesy-patformers of the past in the face.

Before I get down into the grease and grime of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, let’s do a quick recap on the developer behind this profane masterpiece; Rareware. That’s right, the one and only… Rare.

Rare is the company that brought us such classic icons such as a wacky family of apes on a quest to thwart the plans of an evil crocodile, a sexy red-headed secret agent (also the only video game character to grace the cover of FHM), and the quirky duo of a bear and… whatever a “kazooie” is.

If you can believe it, Conker’s Bad Fur Day is a follow-up… to a light-hearted children’s game for Game Boy/Game Boy Color.

Conker’s Pocket Tales was released for Game Boy Color in June 1999. Interestingly, it was released as a “dual-format” cartridge; Conker’s Pocket Tales was boxed in a Game Boy Color package, but it could also be played on the black-and-white (or green if you prefer “the brick“) Game Boy systems, featuring slight alterations to the levels and enemies. Pocket Tales follows Conker on his quest to save his girlfriend, Berri, from the clutches of an evil acorn. In order for her birthday party to commence, Conker also needs to find all of Berri’s presents that have been scattered throughout the game.

See, doesn’t it just scream “light-hearted kid’s game”?

Not to mislead parents into buying Bad Fur Day for their kids, extra warnings like the “THIS GAME IS NOT INTENDED FOR ANYONE UNDER 17″ label were added to the box. Were they necessary? No, but it definitely got the point across.

It’s unclear just how long after the events of Pocket Tales that Conker’s Bad Fur Day takes place, so it’s hard to decipher if this is a direct sequel, or merely a spin-off. I’m not going to get into the story; I’ll let you experience it first-hand, but one of the things that I absolutely LOVE about this game is its countless movie references. When the game starts, you’re treated to a prologue in the style of the opening scene to A Clockwork Orange. There’s a point where Conker and Berri do a parody of this epic scene from The Matrix. Heck, even the final boss is a parody. I can’t say it cause that would be a spoiler, but it’s EPIC.

The release of Conker’s Bad Fur Day had controversy written all over it: never before had a game this profane, been released- especially on a Nintendo system, the most “family oriented” of the consoles.

Rareware’s history of games all had one thing in common; games produced by Rareware were cute and kid-friendly. Not wanting to fall into the “cesspool of Barneyism”, Rareware created this… the ultimate slap-in-the-face, profanity heavy, sexual undertones galore mockery of a platformer- and it was excellent. What other game can you think of that has an opera-singing pile of @&$# for a boss? Take a look:

[Note: This is the version from Conker: Live and Reloaded. The original N64 version is uncensored.]

Yep… from the same people who brought you the Donkey Kong franchise. Let that sink in for a bit.

Graphically speaking, Conker’s Bad Fur Day had some of the best animation of any Nintendo 64 game: Of course, the game was released in 2001, making it one of the last on the console before the release of the GameCube.

Bad Fur Day is also considered to have one of the best audio tracks for N64 as well. No other game, not even the legendary StarFox 64 had as many vocal tracks as Bad Fur Day. [An interesting side note: Chris Seavor, producer of BFD, does the voices of Conker and a few other male characters.]

Shortly after Rare was purchased by Microsoft, the game was remade for Xbox in 2005 as Conker: Live and Reloaded. This business deal might explain why Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts was an Xbox 360 exclusive- and such a horrible game…

Conker: Live and Reloaded stays true to its roots, keeping all of the original gameplay features and audio intact. The multiplayer stayed, and got a nice new addition to it that we like to call Xbox Live. A few of the cutscenes have minor alterations to them due to the Xbox’s upgraded graphics engine, but the vast majority of the game is copy-pasted from BFD. While the graphics were an amazing improvement, the new look took away some of the “cartoonyish” nature of the game, making it a little less humorous than the original.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day was ranked 97th in Official Nintendo Magazine’s top 100 Nintendo Games of All Time, and was voted the #1 funniest game of all time by GameTrailers.com. Contrary to those accolades, the game never saw a Japan release date, but Live and Reloaded did. The TV commercial could only be aired on the Playboy channel and late-night cable TV. Nintendo Power refused to cover Conker’s Bad Fur Day when it first released way back in 2001. It didn’t grace the pages until issue #230, as part of Playback, a section quite like the Retro Corner. In case you were wondering, Conker’s Bad Fur Day hit the shelves in March 2001; Nintendo Power issue #230 released in July…..2008.

Conker’s Bad Fur Day is one of those games that you play and just continually say “What the heck”, followed by laughter. It’s doubtful that we’ll see it in the Wii’s Virtual Console anytime soon, considering it’s the most family-oriented console in existence, but hey, there’s always emulators…