Conker’s Bad Fur Day for the Nintendo 64 is an action adventure platformer that stars Conker, a foul mouthed, frying pan swinging, money-loving, hard drinking squirrel. Similar in play style to the Banjo-Kazooie/Banjo-Tooie games for the N64, Conker’s Bad Fur Day takes a more adult themed tone with the activities Conker and his friends (and enemies) engage in. “For mature audiences only” is the warning you’re presented with immediately after turning on the console, although I think CBFD is pretty tame by today’s standards of violence and swearing with a heavy emphasis on potty humor and general debauchery. The plot revolves around Conker’s attempts to return home to his girlfriend after a night of drinking and the crazy situations he finds himself in thanks to the Panther King’s odd desire to use a squirrel as an additional leg (?!?!) Conker is presented with a number of puzzles to solve, mini-games to engage in and items to collect that allow you to continue further into the game. You have to hand it to Nintendo for going off the rails a bit with Conker’s Bad Fury Day and they ultimately creating something a tad subversive and not necessarily “on message” with Nintendo’s other family friendly offerings.
I purchased Conker’s Bad Fur Day brand new shortly after buying my used N64 in 2002. By this time, the Gamecube, Nintendo’s next-generation console, had just been released the previous holiday season and I was a very early purchaser of that system so I wasn’t all that interested in what the Nintendo 64 had to offer beyond Mario and Zelda games. I was clearly late to the N64 party and I could grab a used one cheap from video game stores looking to unload inventory. Also around this time, there were still brand new N64 games available in retail stores and CBFD, having been released the previous year in 2001, was one of the last of the new games Nintendo shipped for the console. I figured it would be nice to buy at least one new N64 game while prices were being slashed and I must have thought the “adult theme” of the game was appealing as it wasn’t something Nintendo normally did. Luckily for me, CBFD is now considered a medium/high end game in terms of price due its relative rarity and oddity for the theme. As for the game itself, I haven’t finished it but I’ve played enough of it to know it’s pretty standard 3D platforming and adventure game but its nothing revolutionary in terms of gameplay mechanics. Really, if the adult theme hadn’t been a big selling point, Conker’s Bad Fur Day would have been a pretty forgettable title overall. It looks good for the time but it’s a bit odd hearing swear words coming from the mouths of cute woodland creatures.
Rating: B
Currently in my collection: game, manual, box
Cartridge Corner 