Conker: Live & Reloaded is a remake of the classic N64 flop known as Conker's Bad Fur Day. Seeing as all of two people played that game first time round, it's being given a new lease of life on the Xbox. As well as a graphically rebuilt single player campaign, there's also an exhaustive online component coming to Xbox Live, complete with controllable vehicles, a wealth of classes, and best of all...lightsabers!
Personally I never played the original, so this single player demo is my first introduction to the series. So far, I'm thoroughly surprised - this is turning out to be quite a beauty.
For those like me, not familiar with the game, Conker is a third-person platform based shooter. Although deceptively cute and cuddly on the outside, the game's full of blood, guts and filthy humour. Imagine South Park meets Alvin & The Chipmunks.
What I really adore about the setup though, is that each level of Conker appears to rip-off a movie. Among 'em there'll be The Matrix, Terminator II and the one we get to experience ourselves in this demo, Saving Private Ryan.
The intro to Ryan is recreated worryingly well here - but when re-enacted by cuddly squirrels, it's damn hilarious. In fact from this small teaser, it's clear that humour is gonna be a huge selling point of Conker.
After dodging incoming machine gun fire, working your way up the beach, and a rather genius cut-scene, you'll eventually find yourself inside the "Nazi" bunker. Here you're able to start gunning down the evil Tediz, your enemies in this bizarre tale.
The gameplay itself is simple, nothing more than point, shoot and jump style stuff, but the character handles wonderfully well and it's all good gory fun. What truly struck me was how bloody gorgeous it all looks though - I think it's fair to say these are some of the best graphics on the box yet. It's insanely sharp, beautifully colourful, and still wonderfully detailed - just wait until you see Conker's shaggy tail which looks as to have been plucked straight out of Monsters Inc.
My only hope for the final game is more of an emphasis on platforming than mindless shooting, as the Xbox is still in desperate need of a solid platformer. That aside though, and with the promise of epic online battles with all the humour of the single player game, Conker's poised for surprise hit status when it's released in Spring 2005.
This review/report was created by the great team at TPSreport.co.uk:
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