Conker Live and Reloaded

Name: Conker: Live and Reloaded.
Platform: Xbox, Nintendo 64 (Conker’s Bad Fur Day).

Have you ever been out at the pub one night and had a little too much too drink and wake up in the morning with a raging hangover, only to meet a drunk scarecrow, kill a gargoyle, rescue a bee’s hive, give a cow diarrhea, slay an evil Poo monster and be sent off to fight in a war you used as an excuse on your girlfriend to meet up with the boys at the pub the night before? Conker has, and now he’s back to kill more Tediz and drink some more beer. Take a seat, you know you want too.

The game really looks beautiful. Check out the fur-shading on Conker's tail. Ahhh, so pretty.

But I think that I might get a few things off the bat before we begin. For starters, fans of Conker’s Bad Fur Day might find themselves a little disappointed with this bad boy for a number of reasons. The main reason of course is because you’ve played this game before. The Single Player component is nothing but the Nintendo 64 classic copy and pasted onto the Xbox platform with improved visuals. Secondly, fans of the Heist and Raptor multiplayer modes might also be saddened to discover they have been removed in order to make way for a full on War themed multiplayer experience. It would have been nice if they were stored in a separate game mode, but unfortunately no. Finally, for whatever reason, Rare (or Microsoft more like) thought it would be a good idea to censor the game to an even greater extent than the Nintendo 64 version. This decision seems almost utterly pointless, as when you complete the Single Player mode, you unlock an option called Potty Mouth which presents you with uncensored swearing in the Multiplayer component of the game. Why not the whole game? The Great Mighty Poo song will never be the same.

The Tediz are back, but they don't look quite as cuddly as before.

Thankfully, that's about all the bad in this game. Moving on to the positive aspects, let's begin by annotating those pretty screen shots. The graphics in this game could have easily fooled me into being that of an Xbox 360 title. Rare are known for pushing a console to its limit and Live and Reloaded is no exception. All the areas Conker explores are big and colourful, and the fur-shading effects really do help bring the characters to life. Water looks shiny and... watery, and explosions and other effects have been improved drastically. Even when you blow the head off the zombie, you can't help but awe at the effects of the blood running down the screen. However, some of the animation during the cut scenes is questionable. When Conker gets knocked out by the Squirrel General during It's War for example, he hits the ground unconscious before he even gets punched. It may not seem much, but it's one of the only animation problems with the cut scenes you will actually notice and go "what the hell?".

This is the only part of the game where the censor truly ruins it. :(

If you are like me and you became extremely annoyed with some areas of this game because difficulty spited randomly, then you may also be pleased to hear that Rare has addressed almost all of these issues in this version. When Conker has a firearm equipped for example, he can now jump and run around while he has it out, and thanks to the two thumb sticks, shooting and moving around is much easier to pull off. This especially becomes useful during the Spooky chapter, as you can maneuver Conker better when a gang of zombies begin to close in on you. Some boss battles are shorter and/or easier than they used to be which is also a nice re-addition, as some of them did tend to drag on.

The game also features a brand new War Campaign called ChapterX. ChapterX sees you play through the 200 year war as either the Tediz or the SHC. Unlike Conker's Bad Fur Day's War multiplayer where you played as a generic Squirrel or Tedi that all shared the same stats and weapons, Live and Reloaded introduces new classes. Classes are separated into six groups: Grunt, Demolisher, Thermophile, Sky Jockey, Sneaker and Long Ranger. Grunts are your standard soldier and have access to the machine gun and the grenade launcher. Demolishers are the big boys. They move slowly, but have access to the all-purpose bazooka and the mini-gun, as well as the Tank. Thermophiles just like watching stuff go up in flames. As such, they can use the Flamethrower and Fauster, the latter of which is a laser that causes extreme damage to mobile units. Sky Jockeys are used for in-air combat. They are the only units that can use the planes and whatnot to blow up whatever they see fit. When they have been grounded though, they only have access to a couple of weak pistols, so only choose them if you plan on flying. If on Bad Fur Day you were a fan of the knife and katana, then the Sneaker will keep you happy. In addition to those two weapons, they have the ability to disguise themselves as an enemy soldier, use a cloaking device and even play dead so they can kill unsuspecting enemies. Long Rangers, as the name implies, are good at long range. Having access to the Sniper Rifle, if ever you are walking into an enemy base and all of a sudden your head explodes, there is a good chance you just got sniped. Needless to say, these guys are weak in up-close combat.

Not surprisingly, this chapter is a lot more violent on the Xbox.

With all that said though, ChapterX is only a few missions long. They mostly range from "retrieve the enemies plans" or "capture the enemy flag", but some of the maps are very fun to play on. The different classes can also add some replay value. Oh my how could I forget about Xbox LIVE? Well actually there is a reason for that. Most likely due to the games short lived success on the Xbox as well as the fact it's now over four years old, finding a match on Xbox LIVE is near impossible. I say this because every time I tried to find a game, I was greeted with "No Matches Found" every time. Don't buy this for the online multiplayer, because there doesn't seem to be any anymore.

"Eat lead you ^&%#ing &%$hole *^$%sucker!" I'm not joking, that's a direct quote from the game.

Conker: Live and Reloaded may be nothing more than Bad Fur Day with a face lift and a few extra modes, but it still is a ton to fun to play. The crude humour, repulsive characters and hilariously violent game play truly make this a gem for the Xbox. But since the game is now over four-years old and didn’t sell all that well, don’t expect to find an easy game over Xbox LIVE. If you have an Xbox (or Xbox 360) and can find this game cheap second hand, it may just be worth a look.

The Good
- One of the best looking games on the original Xbox.
- All the crudeness remains intact.
- Most of the issues with Bad Fur Day have been addressed.
- All new multiplayer War campaign.
- Audio quality has been increased.
- Uncensored Multiplayer upon completion of Single Player.

The Bad
- Not much has changed here.
- Great Mighty Poo + Censored = Sadface.
- The camera doesn’t want you to succeed.
- Why did they replace the frying pan with a baseball bat? )’:

Graphics: 5/5 – Gorgeous. I'd be surprised if the Wii could pull this off.
Sound: 4/5 – Revised tracks with a couple new voice clips. It’s good, but pretty much the same.
Gameplay: 4/5 – It’s unfortunate many of the multiplayer options were removed, but the controls work much better than before.
Longevity: 3/5 – Although it's fun, those who never played Bad Fur Day will enjoy it much more.

16/20 – B+ - (80%)