NintendoAge http://nintendoage.com/forum/ -Sqooner Taiwan PAL gamer reviews N64 #1: Conker's Bad Fur Day http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=171003 2017-02-08T10:38:39 -05.00 VGS_OptOut 5
As a British developer, Rare always put effort into optimising the PAL versions of their games, so we didn't get so much of the shamefully letterboxed and slowed down stuff from them that other publishers put out.

However, the worst cases of censorship in PAL land are not found in the UK, but in Germany! There, blood splatters were removed from games such as Goldeneye, and they are not allowed ANY sort of Nazi symbolism at all, even for bad guys! As far as I know, they are the worst, but Australia has also been pretty bad for censorship too...

That's the thing about PAL gaming though, our territory is varied and disparate! There is much more variation within PAL, as compared to NTSC, which is mainly just USA or Japan! ]]> Taiwan PAL gamer reviews N64 #1: Conker's Bad Fur Day http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=171003 2017-02-08T09:03:01 -05.00 VGS_OptOut 5 Originally posted by: OptOut
 
Originally posted by: Philosoraptor

Very thorough and well-written review! I'm glad to hear that the game still holds up well and is still enjoyable.

I'm looking forward to your next review!

Thanks a lot! I really had a lot to say about this one, lol!

I'll probably be putting up my next review sometime at the weekend, so watch out for it (and hopefully a few more people will start to enjoy these reviews too)! Absolutely! I'll keep my eye out for it. Did you end up playing a PAL copy or a NTSC copy? I was wondering if there are any differences or additional instances of censorship in the PAL version.

  ]]> Taiwan PAL gamer reviews N64 #1: Conker's Bad Fur Day http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=171003 2017-02-08T01:27:19 -05.00 VGS_OptOut 5 Originally posted by: Philosoraptor

Very thorough and well-written review! I'm glad to hear that the game still holds up well and is still enjoyable.

I'm looking forward to your next review!
Thanks a lot! I really had a lot to say about this one, lol!

I'll probably be putting up my next review sometime at the weekend, so watch out for it (and hopefully a few more people will start to enjoy these reviews too)! ]]> Taiwan PAL gamer reviews N64 #1: Conker's Bad Fur Day http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=171003 2017-02-07T08:10:50 -05.00 VGS_OptOut 5
I'm looking forward to your next review! ]]> Taiwan PAL gamer reviews N64 #1: Conker's Bad Fur Day http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=31&threadid=171003 2017-02-06T13:50:08 -05.00 VGS_OptOut 5
So today is my first review in what I hope to become a series of reviews here on Gamer's Gauntlet, talking about N64 games I beat as I play through my extensive backlog. The purpose of these reviews is twofold: firstly to vent my impressions and opinions on these titles with people who actually give a damn (my wife doesn't want to hear it!), and secondly to see what other people think and maybe help me look at these games in a new light. I do not intend to flood the board with these topics, maybe one or perhaps two a week if people respond well to them.

Without further ado, my first game: Conker's Bad Fur Day!

A very interesting title indeed, in so many ways, from the backstory of its tumultuous development to the structure and content of the game itself. Knowing a little about the game before I played it, I expected the game to be tonally different from the Banjos and DK64, but I did not expect the structure of the game to differ so substantially. There are very few collectables, and no explicit way to track your progress through the game other than seeing which chapters of the story you have completed. Unlike Banjo and DK, there are no detailed collection screens or level breakdowns. This means that narrative, characters and plot become the main focus of your progression. I found this design choice very refreshing, as it lends the game a definitive flow and pace that the 'collectathon' platformers sometimes lack. It also makes progression feel very natural as you are almost never blocked by an obvious 'gather n of x to pass' or 'get this item first' gate.

I also have to say that this narrative style plays greatly into the overall presentation of the game, which is, in my opinion, possibly the greatest on the system. Graphically the game is stunning, appearing almost like an early PS2 game (minus the resolution of course), with very high polygon models, extensive animation and brilliant texture work for every character and environment encountered. Most impressively of all, this is in addition to dynamic lighting effects that are peerless on the N64... it is unbelievable what Rare managed to achieve visually with this game! The framerate, as with most N64 games, can be considered low by today's standards, but it rarely chugs and dips (unlike Banjo Tooie, I must say!). This all comes together with an artstyle that is unmistakably Rare, but avoids the (sometimes hideously offputting) colour and style clashes seen specifically in DK64 (e.g. that monsterous bug thing you have to race, ugh!). In fact, the game gets bonus points here for the juxtaposition of the cartoony Rare graphics and more adult content, which actually works very well in my opinion. This is all topped off with excellent music and, again, best in class fully voice acted cutscenes (no small feat for N64!).

What works less well for me, however, is the tone of the humor. I find that, for a game that has been praised for its 'adult' and 'mature' content, much of the humor boils down to adolescent-level jokes revolving around poop, boobs and swears. There is very little observational, satirical, or even real character humor in the game, and it is clear that a lot of the dialogue for the game was unscripted and improvised, resulting in long rambling tirades of insults and swearing with little substance. Additionally, the pop culture references were ok I guess, but all of them are tired and obvious by this point. The only humor in the game that really worked for me, and actually seemed innovative and surprising, was the gameplay and game trope based humor. It was very funny to start the game expecting to be able to run and jump around freely, only to be handed control of a staggering, hung-over, Conker who could barely jump an inch off the ground before vomiting all over the place. It was also funny to see my air-meter underwater represented by an increasingly uncomfortable Conker holding his breath! A few more touches like this would have been greatly appreciated.

Unlike the humour, however, the vast majority of the characters in the game, be they side characters or main players, are likable and endearing, especially Conker himself! That squirrel is highly expressive visually, and you get the sense that he is a good guy who sometimes likes to be bad, but in the end will do the right thing, and you end up reallly rooting for him. He is also fantastically well portrayed by his voice actor (Chris Seavor). There was basically only one character in the game who really grated on me, the army general, due to his very generic dumb-guy persona.

Coming back round to the gameplay now, an important way in which Conker differs greatly from Banjo and DK is in the range of different gameplay styles on offer, and this is what probably surprised me, delighted me, but ultimately also frustrated me the most about this game. Both the Banjos and DK64 have varied gameplay, with different objectives to complete through each stage, and a variety of moves to learn to expand gameplay options. Conker takes this one stage further, by often throwing you into completely new gameplay styles, or giving you challenges very different to anything you have seen previously in the game. On one level you will be riding a bull to smash into cows to get them to unload their bowls (after feeding them prune juice), on another you will be peeing on fire demons, and on another you will be racing cavemen on a hoverboard. This is, again, a hugely refeshing experience playing the game, as you really feel like you are trying something new everytime you boot on the console, and when it works well, this game is truly great. However, as you are thrown from one new situation to the next, you can't truly relish the experience in the same way you can for other games... Did you like the tank section? Sorry, it's over now and that's all there is. Yes you can replay it, but it is just the same bit again.

Even worse, though, as you rarely have the chance to actually get used to gameplay styles before being thrown into the action, you will often find youself forced into a frustrating game of trial and error as you try to figure out how to do each new section in turn. This really gets in the way of what is otherwise an extremely polished and well paced experience, and works contrary to the fine presentation of the game as a whole. It takes you out of Conker's world and back to reality when you have to play the same short section for the tenth time, just because you can't quite get the timing right, or you can't wrestle properly with the truly wretched controls and camera in the 3rd person shooting sections. Yes, this is a hard game in places, but unfortunately more often than not it is the 'tear my hair out screaming' hard rather than the 'one more try' hard... It is 'unfair' rather than 'challenging', in my opinion.

Overall, this game is really a tough one for me to give a final assessment. Presentation, narrative and production are a flat out 10, no ifs or buts. The humor doesn't sit right with me, but that is more of a taste thing that will differ for each person, and the rest of the game's charms more than make up for it. The real problem for me is in the gameplay. The structure of the game is fantastic, and all the standard gameplay is fine. It's just the mixed playstyles that cause the issue here. When it works, it is some of the best game design I have witnessed on the N64. When it doesn't it is a genuinely horrible experience, and personally this actually does enough harm to the game to lower my overall opinion of it.

Ultimately, when I judge a game I will always come back to 'is it fun?' and 'is it well designed?'. The answers for both these questions in regard to Conker are certainly YES, but it is a qualified yes... Perhaps on a second or third playthough, my experience would improve, knowing what to do in each different part of the game, but I fear many of the more truly frustrating challenges thrown up would remain so... I really want to say that Conker is a definitively GREAT game, but for me I just can't quite get there. All I can say is that is is a VERY GOOD game, or at best a flawed great one.

I hope anyone still reading this enjoyed my review!   Please let me know what you think of the game and my criticisms of it, and please try not to take offense if my opinion differs from yours! I am relating my experience of the game as someone who has just played it for the first time, completely out of context of the time when it was created, and out of the context of when/where you played it! If we disagree, that's great, let's discuss it!

Thanks for reading!!! ]]>