Conker’s Bad Fur Day was original developed by Rare on the Nintendo 64. However it came right at the end of the console’s life cycle, so many gamers missed out on the chance to play what is one of the most enjoyable games ever released on the system. Bad Fur Day was known for its awesome sense of humour, and remarkably decent game play. One of the more memorable puzzles was needing to get drunk, to be able to urinate to put out fires caused by little demons. This was much like our experience at Xbox HQ, although there weren’t demons, or fires… but let’s not go there. After a long development history, Rare are now finally releasing a remake of this “classic” for the Xbox. Not only does the game now take full advantage of the Xbox’s graphic power, it is also Live enabled.
The evening consisted of one and a half hours for practicing – getting used to the controls, then a tournament that lasted several hours. Beer and pizza were on hand for everyone, as was cheap whiskey for the player with the lowest points in each round. PALGN deliberately blew itself up several times in one round, so we could take advantage of this offer. Yep… that’s what happened.
Though we didn’t get a so much as a peek at the single player, we were assured that the single player from Conker’s Bad Fur Day was entirely intact. However, the same can’t be said for the multiplayer, it’s been rebuilt from the ground up. Before you had a wide variety of different modes, all related to the original single players games. Anyone who was looking forward to taking remade versions of Raptor, Tank, Heist or Beach for a spin will probably be disappointed as there is no sign of them.
Instead, Rare have chosen to juice-up War and Deathmatch modes to the absolute max. In the previous game, War was an expansive multiplayer mode that was amazingly deep and fun. The Squirrels (SHC) were pitted against the Tediz. Players started in their home base and had to complete some sort of objective, generally it would involve capturing or killing something.
Why you never take a hair dryer into the bath
Conker: Live and Reloaded has taken this mode and completely revamped it to rival longtime PC multiplayer frag-fests like Team Fortress, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament and now console titles like Halo or Timesplitters. Players will be able to take the game Live, get together a LAN game through system link, split-screen multiplayer or even go it alone with a bunch of bots.
While there are similarities present, several things set this game apart from both the previous incarnate and most other multiplayer games available. Firstly, the game is divided into two segments, Old War and Future War. Old takes place in what conceptually looks like quasi-WWII and Future looks, well, very futuristic. Differences between the two are visually obvious. Old War has older weapons, “primitive” technology and environments are appropriately themed. New War has futuristic weapons, high tech and environments that look to be themed from Sci-fi movies.
We were given access to four levels. One from the Old War and three from the Future War. All the levels looked to be inspired form some other source. The Old War level was a castle set a top a mountain that could be reached by a cable car ride. It looked to be inspired by Wolfenstein. The three Future War levels were all very diverse and seemed to be born from other numerous sources. We concluded that one looked like a scene Total Recall, though there was not one Californian Governor in sight.
At the start of each level, players are given a brief intro as to the objective of each map. Most were a humorous little back-story that explained to role of each side. While it seemed like an interesting idea, the reaction was mixed. Players were upset when they were stuck on the Tediz side during the Old War map, as the objectives were unclear and confusing. On other maps, the objectives seemed superfluous, as it made little difference to how the game was played.
However, once we eventually figured the objectives, things started to fall into place. In this instance, the Tediz were attempting to power-up a machine by stepping over three switches, then heading down the gondola and fetching some batteries. The SHC had the task of breaking the machine by stepping over three different switches (on their side) and heading up the gondola to overload the machine. It was interesting to find that points were awarded on a team basis as objectives were completed and that individual points awarded for frags only counted in the event of a draw. This was the major source of frustration for anyone on the Tediz side when the objectives weren’t clear.
In BFD, the players ran around and picked up weapons as they played. When you picked up another weapon, you would automatically switch. However, Conker: Live and Reloaded is much more akin to Team Fortress where each player will pick their class before and during a game. However, the focus Conker: Live and Reloaded is action and gore, so there aren’t any medical classes or anything that would get in the way of unashamed violence. Instead, you’ve got a choice from the epitomes of destruction. Classes range from stealthy sword-slingers, foot soldiers, snipers, pyrotechs and hulking rocketeers. Each has its pros and cons, its primary, secondary and tertiary weapons and in this preview build, it seemed that some balance was still required before the final game. The longer we played, the more people realized that the snipers and rocketeers were the most effective classes in taking foes down quickly and smartly.
Players will not pick up new weapons. Instead there are a number of self-replenishing upgrades represented by yellow spheres that players can pick up. Due to the frenetic nature of our play, we weren’t able to effectively observe the effectiveness of these upgrades. They too seemed a little superfluous.
One thing that marred the previous Conker multiplayer experience was that the control left a lot to be desired. Shots could only be fired from a stand-still and there weren’t any substantial aiming reticules. Conker: Live and Reloaded fixes this issue but aggravates it at the same time. While it controls like your run-of-the-mill 3rd person shooter, Rare have been a bit ambitious with the game controls and the HUD. The controls also felt like they needed a bit of a tune up.
Snuggle THIS!
The control scheme uses pretty much every button on the Xbox controller but it doesn’t feel quite comfortable at first. For example, it wasn’t until the 3rd round of play that it was discovered that the Left thumbstick button was actually the jump button. As each class has its preset weapons and you won’t pick up anymore, most weapons have some sort of secondary function. Pressing the L-button will switch the function, while holding it will display your options and you can manually switch where to the function you desire (similar to Deus Ex). For example, the rifle may switch between single, burst and auto fire. It works but if you die, you need to reswitch before you run into any enemies. The X-button works as a switch for secondary weapons/functions. The sword-slingers will cloak, some can use a spray can to spread their “mark” with a spraycan while hulking characters go into “berserk” mode. However, the later switch takes about 10 seconds and leaves you a sitting duck.
The scheme was never quite comfortable and the control itself at times lagged and felt a little too loose. Even on Microsoft’s massive Plasma screens, the HUD looked convoluted with useless information. We never quite figured all the controls and displays but at least the radar was very well done. It even projected players that were at a higher altitude. However, this was a preview build. We can hope that at least the control will be polished up before the final release.
There are vehicles in the game but we were unable to board any of them and take them for a spin. Most looked fairly generic, with a couple of land vehicles and a couple of plane-type ones. However, we expect that vehicles will be fully playable in the final build.
Level design was a little disappointing. Though they were all inspired from other sources, on their own they weren’t inspired at all. Levels were huge and largely baron and confusing. To add to that, neither side has a particular movement advantage and large distances take a long time to traverse (Unless you can find a vehicle). They all looked very nice but none were very exciting. Hopefully a full-fledged 16 player Live match will excite things a bit.
Presentation wise, the game looks every bit a Rare title. Not a single menu was wasted and the CG scenes were quite enthralling. Despite being a preview build, the frame rate was very solid and we never really noticed any sharp deviations. The game also displayed an excellent physics engine. When a rocket hit the gondola in the Old War level, it would sway violently. Explosions often threw players about the level and sometimes dismembered them completely. Players who fell victim to the sniper, were left missing a huge chunk of their head. We can’t really comment on the sound for the moment, primarily because it was quite difficult to hear with the setup we had. However, from what other sources tell us, the humour from the in-game chatting between characters is a major selling point. We will have more on this in our final review of the game.
Rare are looking to take advantage of the current popularity of multiplayer shooters with its own take. Some who had fond memories playing the other modes may be a little saddened by their absence, but the fully fleshed War mode is looking, gripes aside, extremely promising. Combined with what was one of the best platformers ever made, Conker: Live and Reloaded is hopefully the first of many titles that will bring Rare back into the glory days of development on modern consoles. We look forward to spending more time with the title for our final review.
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