All reports indicate that Conker: Live & Reloaded is going to be the last Microsoft-published game to come out for the Xbox. Considering this was their first console, Microsoft put out some pretty good first-part titles. Too bad they are going out on such a note of mediocrity. Conker is just so stale in too many ways.



The single-player mode of Conker: Live & Reloaded is almost exactly the same game we saw as Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64, which came out as that console took its last gasps back in 2001. The game follows the adventure of an overly cute, foul-mouthed, alcoholic squirrel as he tries to make his way home after a serious bender at the pub. Along the way he meets some of the most bizarre characters to ever populate a video game. How many games do you know of that have a giant poo monster? If you’re looking for a lot of this game to make sense, forget it.

The game shoots straight for the humorous. The main problem is that most people grew out of this type of humor about the same time they quit thinking that drinking beer until they threw up at a college frat party was high entertainment. The game seems to think it’s a lot cleverer than it really is. It is clever if you think a well-executed toilet joke from The Benny Hill Show is the pinnacle of comedy. Compared to other newer games that have adult humor with a more sophisticated flair, Conker just seems like one long, infantile fart and scat joke. I will admit I laughed now and then (how could anyone really help themselves in some of the more absurd moments) and the homage to popular movies were entertaining (although quickly becoming dated), but overall the story just doesn’t hold up.

Gameplay in single-player mode changed very little too. Conker’s Bad Fur Day was a game that combined standard platform play for most of the game with shooter elements later in the game. Sadly, many of the problems that could be forgiven back in 2001 are still present in Live & Reloaded and are now not so easily forgiven. The camera is not up to par with most modern platform games. It has some frustrating jumping puzzles and it is not always clear what the player needs to do next or where to go in the adventure. The just-off movement controls don’t help matters. Players have seen many better platformers since the original Conker, which makes it hard to go back to what Conker offers. Going from the cartridge format of the N64 to the Xbox disc also added in all-too-frequent loads, making this game actually inferior to the N64 game in at least one way.

One vast improvement over the N64 Conker is the graphical execution of the game. Developer Rare really worked the Xbox hardware hard to give us a treat for the eyes. Everything from Conker’s bushy tail to the richly-detailed world looks great. Sound is also pretty good with a nice soundtrack and some very respectable voice acting.



Now we get to the schizophrenia that is the multiplayer portion of Conker: Live & Reloaded. After treating us to an almost carbon-copy gaming experience with the single-player mode, Rare tacked on a surprisingly entertaining all-new multiplayer game that basically has nothing to do with the adventure game. In this third-person-perspective shooter, the player will engage in team-based, objective-game battles between the Squirrel High Command and the malevolent Tediz that showed up in the latter parts of the single-player game. The battlefields vary from stylized World War II locations to futuristic maps. There is just something very entertaining about pitting cute, furry critters against each other and blowing the stuffing out of your enemies. It worked pretty well in Acclaim’s Fur Fighters and it works well here.

As a multiplayer game begins, the player is first presented with a choice of sides and then must choose the class of character he wishes to play as. There are six different classes to choose from, each with its own weapons, vehicles, gadgets and skills. They range from the agile, cloakable, lightly-armed Sneeker to the plodding, rocket-launcher-toting Demolisher. In between are the Grunt, Long Ranger, Sky Jockey and Thermophile. Once engaged, the player will find the action fast and furious. The weapons and gadgets are varied and fun to use. Vehicle spawn points allow the player to select from an array of vehicles that are appropriate to the skills his soldier class possesses. In case you have not guessed already, the Sky Jockey is your team’s air-support specialist and master of the flying hardware.

Via Xbox Live or System Link, up to 16 players can battle at once. One place Conker: Live & Reloaded even outdid Halo’s multiplayer is in the area of bots to play against in order to practice with different soldier classes and maps. The bots’ AI may not be the absolute best, but it sure beats just wandering around an empty map to familiarize yourself or jumping straight into combat with other players and getting your butt unceremoniously handed to you. Sadly, the game only allows the screen to be split for two players (and there are even some small issues then) to play on a single console, but I suppose it could have been worse.



If anything seriously negative can be said about the multiplayer component, it would have to be the level design. Like its single-player mode brothers, the levels in the multiplayer game are just not that impressive and feel uninspired.

In the end, Conker: Live & Reloaded must first stand on its single-player experience. There it pales in comparison to the king of Xbox action/adventure platformers: Psychonauts. It also seems dated when compared to newer franchises like Ratchet & Clank and Jak and Daxter. In the multiplayer department it fares a little better, but here it could have used a little more polish and a more complete experience. It is okay but not great. It deserves every bit of its three out of five sharks, but nothing more.