E3 2004: Conker: Live and Reloaded

Rare's foul-mouthed squirrel with attitude is back. Now with fur-shading. We get dirty in multiplayer mode.

Update: Video coverage added.

It's been years since Rare's critically-lauded title, Conker's Bad Fur Day, turned the N64 upside down with its brash, adult humor not seen from any of Nintendo's first or second party offerings at the time. It set the bar for mature-themed platformers with its top notch production values and typical Rare-grade quality.

A lot has changed since then. The biggest change being that you must travel all the way to Microsoft's booth in the South Hall if you want to play Rare games now. And with Microsoft putting its support behind Rare to create new and dependable content for its platform, it was only a matter of time until Conker showed up in some form or another. And we were fortunate enough to play Rare's all-new Conker: Live and Reloaded in multilayer form.

The game controls quite well considering all the moves, weapons and unique abilities you can control, such as transformations and timed grenades. Certain weapons will slow you down, making you plod through maps while landing devastating attacks. And then a transformation might make you extremely fast and agile, only to make you vulnerable in some cases. There's quite a bit to do, but once you get a handle on all the options, it's easy to move around.

Visually, it's not a spectacular-looking game, but it does manage to pack in a lot of details and explosions at a steady framerate. Not nearly as nice as the single player, it seems quite obvious Rare has scaled down the graphics to maintain a steady multilayer experience. What it loses, it gains, in having up to 16 players duke it out, each with unique weapons and attacks. Doing all of this at a steady framerate more than makes up for its visual shortcomings.

With Rare's track record of development and Microsoft's commitment in giving their AAA developers ample time, don't expect to see Conker for quite some time. Considering how solid the multilayer demonstration was at this stage in development, there's no doubt Rare can only make improvements on Conker: Live and Reloaded as the game moves forward.

Rare's other Xbox title at the show, Kameo, was looking fantastic - see our hands-on here.

Will Federman
Staff Writer, Kikizo.com