Conker's Bad Fur Day (Nintendo 64) Review

BFD starts with little old Conker the squirrel sat on a throne, crown tilted on his head, looking thoroughly fed up. Cue a flashback to how it all started – Conker getting drunk, again, in the local with a group of friends. Sat there, merrily becoming increasingly intoxicated, bladder swelling and guilt level at leaving girlfriend Berri alone at home rising rapidly, he decides that since it is his round next, he had better use a delay tactic. So off he stumbles, staggering more than seems healthy, when he notices some cute girls at a nearby table. But then he also notices some men dressed as soldiers as well, discussing the war between the Teddiz and the Squirrels. Next thing he knows, he is being pushed into signing up to fight for his own kind. And so begins his Bad Fur Day…

The Nintendo 64 started off with a bang when Nintendo released Super Mario 64 to the world, leaving gamers gasping for breath at the sight of such a wonderful 3D rendering of the Mushroom Kingdom and the Italian plumber himself. From there Third Party games just seemed to flounder in comparison. However, at the time the part-owned by Nintendo Rare had become highly accustomed to the hardware and by the time Conker came out as the platform was about to keel over and breath its last puff. Therefore, what was cranked out for Conker’s Bad Fur Day still stands out as one of the finest examples of 3D on the system, with scarily detailed attention on the various characters (it really is worrying at times what goes on in the minds of the artists there – which you will understand when you see that sunflower – and brilliant themed environments to play through. A triumph indeed…

Rare’s musical style is well known by Nintendo fans – upbeat, happy-go-lucky music that makes you feel happier whilst playing its titles. With Conker’s Bad Fur Day this does not change too much in all honesty, but the addition of various effects (such as squelching poo noises), scenario techniques (like the soundtrack going slower and off-key as Conker becomes drunk and stumbles around, hiccoughing regularly) and very impressive voice acting mean that the Nintendo 64’s swansong was the company’s greatest accomplishment of that generation. Whilst the music and sound effects brought so much to the game, nothing beats anything like the Scouse Dung Beetles, a posh cow getting the screaming squirts or the Great Mighty Poo song. You simply cannot buy ‘class’ like this anywhere else and it is a major reason why people miss Rare so much today.

Plagiarism and paying homage to classics are similar in nature, yet completely different in execution. Unfortunately, many critics placed Rare in the former category, stating that anything it churned out was simply a re-jigged version of some other developer’s game – especially its close friend, Nintendo. Sure, the parallels can be drawn between the likes of Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Kazooie, as well as Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing, but Rare’s games always had enough extras thrown in to ensure that gamers were not being fooled into making a false purchase and having basically a duplicate title. Classics such as GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Blast Corps and even its very old titles of SabreWulf, Knight Lore, Attic Attac and so on highlight the diversity found with the Stamper Brothers’ group. Conker’s Bad Fur Day can be added to that creative list, most definitely.

You see, whereas it may just seem like your average, run-of-the-mill three-dimensional platform adventure at first glance, delving deeper into the adventure, peeling back that initial outer layer, reveals something extraordinarily special.

Your tasks throughout help to avoid this from slumping into a cesspit Leisure Suit Larry void. Chasing round, trying to bash a bouncing key (complete with eyes and annoying cry), with a frying pan fresh from your context sensitive button in order to open up a door is a simple example. Having to goad a raging bull, get it to ram into a wooden barrier, then jump on its back and guide it round to charge at a poor defenceless cow, making her wander over to a vat of prune juice that you conveniently left by the arena-side and gulp it down, only to excrete the intake pretty soon after, before eventually making her explode with one final charge is an instance where more thought has to go into proceedings. This is by no means a half-baked game. Rare put blood, sweat and tears in to BFD to change it from the sugary-sweet original build and the rather average GBC version. It definitely succeeded in creating a memorable classic...

It is not so much the fact that Conker's BFD is a very difficult game at all, more the actuality of it being extremely long, in-depth and perhaps slightly unfair in the control stakes. However, the minor control issues do not deter from the enjoyment factor considerably and what you have is a highly entertaining platform romp. Full of laughter, disgusting features, varied and original level design and challenges that really get the brain working and tests your reflexes, BFD is a majestic N64 title that will sit in your N64 snugly until that final annoying boss is chuck out of the air-lock and the final credits roll out.