Damn Fine Vidya Games: Conker's Bad Fur Day

**Damn Fine Vidya Games is written by my other half, Mr. Coffee, about his love for retro video games.**

Hello nerd boys and girls,

This week I’m reviewing Conker’s Bad Fur Day.

Some history:  Conker made his debut in the 2001 N64 game: Conker’s Bad Fur Day.  I first experienced Conker that same year for approximately ten minutes.  I was at a friend’s house when he stuck a copy of his dad’s game into the console.  After a couple of long cut scenes and a little gameplay, his dad came in, saw what we were playing,  and took the game away. The few minutes of play left some indelible images (Berri the bunny doing some suggestive aerobics.  The tiny Grim Reaper.) on my teenaged brain.   Conker was originally developed as a kids game called Conker’s Quest.  Due to criticism of the game's "cutesy" theme, the team at Rare decided to take the game in a more mature sex, drugs, and booze direction.  I got to play the full game a few years later on an emulator and loved every second. 

The game centers itself around Conker, a drunken squirrel who just wants to get home to Berri (his hot bunny girlfriend) after a long night of drinking.  Too bad for Conker that the ruler of the land, King Panther, has decided he wants a red squirrel to replace one of the legs on his table.  Hilarity ensues as Conker evades King Panther’s minions, faces a pile of opera-singing poop, and tries to find his way to Berri.  Conker's journey is a miraculous piece of video gaming history that deserves to be replayed over and over.

This is not an easy game, and I don’t recommend it for beginners.  The control scheme mirrors Mario 64.  If you've practiced with the N64’s control stick in open world games, it should be fairly easy.  I invited a friend over to play and he spent a lot of time getting used to the controls and complained that they were too blocky compared to current consoles.  Rare planned a sequel to Bad Fur Day called Conker’s Other Bad Day, but, due to the commercial failure of the original game, it never happened.  Microsoft did pump out a quick remake called Conker: Live and Reloaded, but it didn’t play well because it failed to recreate the amount of exact detail Rare originally spent creating the original N64 game.

My old friend Conker was recently in the news because Microsoft decided to announce the cocktease that was a Conker reboot.  Unfortunately for those that love our little drunken squirrel friend, the company Microsoft approached with the idea turned it down.  Will Conker ever get to put his squirrel nuts in Berri’s carrot hole?  We may never know.  (Hopefully we’ll still get to see the Perfect Dark and Banjo reboot games we’ve been promised.)  In the meantime go find a way to play Conker’s Bad Fur Day!