Given Chris Seavor's ambitions for Conker as a series in the 00s, this game probably needed to exist to satisfy them. It's a bit much to dump a sequel to a limited release N64 game on the Xbox audience without giving them a way to experience the original. But I do think the world would've largely benefitted from just seeing the original ported, warts and all.
Yes, Live & Reloaded is in a lot of ways a cleaned up experience from Bad Fur Day. Yes, the graphics are quite impressive and show off a lot of what the original Xbox could do. Yes, the full orchestration is great and does a lot for the overall experience. Yes, "Bats Tower" is no longer suffering. Yes, "Spooky" is honestly an all-around improvement, a feat given that it was already a highlight of Bad Fur Day's singleplayer (and I include in that the inexplicable Van Helsing costume change). Yes, "It's War" is far more visually interesting, with the varied environs doing a lot to add to the sense of Conker infiltrating an enemy stronghold. Yes, that one Tediz mini-boss is a fun addition. And yes, the game continues its self-awareness by acknowledging its nature as a remake, at least in the beginning.
But I feel like a lot of the intentionality of the original is gone. On some level, Bad Fur Day's constant abuse of the player was the point, especially given how easy it is to try again. A lot of the original's visual nuance is missing, from how some characters look to how some characters animate. For goodness sakes, Conker's so furry that it's hard to read his expression at times, and you miss out on little visual cues like him flashing the camera an aggressively-nonchalant grimace with "(Hope she's rich 'cos she ain't cute.)" Or using the multiplayer Grunt models for the Grey Squirrels in "It's War", with their cocksure smirks, COMPLETELY undercuts the tone of the Saving Private Ryan opening and parody. Or how the toilet goblin clearly has spare toilet paper, or how the cavemen just kinda do a stupid dance to taunt Conker and Fangy in the arena, or how the blueblood catfish's money uses the SAME model as the other wads of cash instead of a new one...
This is without getting into the usual hot-button issue, the game's extra censorship. I can actually generally accept it this time around - most of the jokes with the cusses are simply that the characters cuss, and a bleep conveys that as well as the swear itself. But of course, censoring "Sloprano" is a huge buzzkill, as was censoring, weirdly, that one joke about confusing the words "fellatio" and "Fidelio". What, couldn't be assed to write another joke? Really, I wouldn't mind so much if the censorship thing was consistent; what, are "shite" and "feck" okay because the dumb Americans at Microsoft are too stupid to realize these are accented ways of saying "shit" and "fuck"? Then why censor "twat" in "Sloprano" when it only rhymes with "scat" in British slang (since Americans would rhyme it with "hot")?
But the most egregious thing of all is the goblins. Like, I get it - you want to increase the emphasis on combat, and you want to get there by adding more enemies throughout the game ramping up to the nighttime chapters. And at first, it's kind of a cute diversion, unexpectedly having to worry about mid-game enemies in an early game area. But then the game just keeps spamming these goblins for no reason! There's never any attempt to explain who the goblins are, or why they're here, or why they're so aggressive, or anything like that. In Bad Fur Day, they were used super sparingly, enough so that you didn't really question it, just accepting these weirdos as part of the tapestry of this misanthropic game world. If they were more pronounced in Bad Fur Day, doubtless the game would have a joke overexplaining their presence - but they show up in like two places, so, no need for that. Here, they're everywhere in the daytime, then completely abandoned at night, replaced very briefly by haunted dolls before the game ultimately decides to dispense with extra enemies all together. It honestly makes the game feel like a low-effort ROMhack, where the hacker couldn't be assed to change up the levels and instead just added more enemies into the standard levels. And tightened up the graphics a little bit, sure.
Xbox Live & Co is okay. Anything replacing Bad Fur Day's excellent, varied multiplayer is a bummer as a matter of course, but Xbox Live & Co is... fine. Probably better back in its heyday, and doing an exhibition run of it in singleplayer is kinda lame, but I can see where potential would come from with this. Sneeker and Sky Jockey felt like the only two particularly fun classes on first blush, but maybe the others feel better with more practice. I don't know that it adds a ton, embellishing the Professor as a threat (and giving him a rude name) as well as bringing back the Panther King, but it is something. I feel like there's the start of it being a decent commentary on the then-burgeoning modern military squad-based shooter, but there just isn't enough there for it to be more than a few decent jokes/references. Or maybe I'm just the wrong audience, with my competitive shooter experience being with Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2?
I think Live & Reloaded would've been acceptable if it had a follow-up, or if it had gone all-in on a more expansive multiplayer. As it is, it's trying to take a weirdly auteur project, filter it down to Microsoft's standards, then build it back up as a competitive shooter. I guess it's still a broadly equivalent experience, and if this was the only way you played it... I mean, it'd be all right. But I don't think it'd be anything special, which is the most damning thing.
Yes, Live & Reloaded is in a lot of ways a cleaned up experience from Bad Fur Day. Yes, the graphics are quite impressive and show off a lot of what the original Xbox could do. Yes, the full orchestration is great and does a lot for the overall experience. Yes, "Bats Tower" is no longer suffering. Yes, "Spooky" is honestly an all-around improvement, a feat given that it was already a highlight of Bad Fur Day's singleplayer (and I include in that the inexplicable Van Helsing costume change). Yes, "It's War" is far more visually interesting, with the varied environs doing a lot to add to the sense of Conker infiltrating an enemy stronghold. Yes, that one Tediz mini-boss is a fun addition. And yes, the game continues its self-awareness by acknowledging its nature as a remake, at least in the beginning.
But I feel like a lot of the intentionality of the original is gone. On some level, Bad Fur Day's constant abuse of the player was the point, especially given how easy it is to try again. A lot of the original's visual nuance is missing, from how some characters look to how some characters animate. For goodness sakes, Conker's so furry that it's hard to read his expression at times, and you miss out on little visual cues like him flashing the camera an aggressively-nonchalant grimace with "(Hope she's rich 'cos she ain't cute.)" Or using the multiplayer Grunt models for the Grey Squirrels in "It's War", with their cocksure smirks, COMPLETELY undercuts the tone of the Saving Private Ryan opening and parody. Or how the toilet goblin clearly has spare toilet paper, or how the cavemen just kinda do a stupid dance to taunt Conker and Fangy in the arena, or how the blueblood catfish's money uses the SAME model as the other wads of cash instead of a new one...
This is without getting into the usual hot-button issue, the game's extra censorship. I can actually generally accept it this time around - most of the jokes with the cusses are simply that the characters cuss, and a bleep conveys that as well as the swear itself. But of course, censoring "Sloprano" is a huge buzzkill, as was censoring, weirdly, that one joke about confusing the words "fellatio" and "Fidelio". What, couldn't be assed to write another joke? Really, I wouldn't mind so much if the censorship thing was consistent; what, are "shite" and "feck" okay because the dumb Americans at Microsoft are too stupid to realize these are accented ways of saying "shit" and "fuck"? Then why censor "twat" in "Sloprano" when it only rhymes with "scat" in British slang (since Americans would rhyme it with "hot")?
But the most egregious thing of all is the goblins. Like, I get it - you want to increase the emphasis on combat, and you want to get there by adding more enemies throughout the game ramping up to the nighttime chapters. And at first, it's kind of a cute diversion, unexpectedly having to worry about mid-game enemies in an early game area. But then the game just keeps spamming these goblins for no reason! There's never any attempt to explain who the goblins are, or why they're here, or why they're so aggressive, or anything like that. In Bad Fur Day, they were used super sparingly, enough so that you didn't really question it, just accepting these weirdos as part of the tapestry of this misanthropic game world. If they were more pronounced in Bad Fur Day, doubtless the game would have a joke overexplaining their presence - but they show up in like two places, so, no need for that. Here, they're everywhere in the daytime, then completely abandoned at night, replaced very briefly by haunted dolls before the game ultimately decides to dispense with extra enemies all together. It honestly makes the game feel like a low-effort ROMhack, where the hacker couldn't be assed to change up the levels and instead just added more enemies into the standard levels. And tightened up the graphics a little bit, sure.
Xbox Live & Co is okay. Anything replacing Bad Fur Day's excellent, varied multiplayer is a bummer as a matter of course, but Xbox Live & Co is... fine. Probably better back in its heyday, and doing an exhibition run of it in singleplayer is kinda lame, but I can see where potential would come from with this. Sneeker and Sky Jockey felt like the only two particularly fun classes on first blush, but maybe the others feel better with more practice. I don't know that it adds a ton, embellishing the Professor as a threat (and giving him a rude name) as well as bringing back the Panther King, but it is something. I feel like there's the start of it being a decent commentary on the then-burgeoning modern military squad-based shooter, but there just isn't enough there for it to be more than a few decent jokes/references. Or maybe I'm just the wrong audience, with my competitive shooter experience being with Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2?
I think Live & Reloaded would've been acceptable if it had a follow-up, or if it had gone all-in on a more expansive multiplayer. As it is, it's trying to take a weirdly auteur project, filter it down to Microsoft's standards, then build it back up as a competitive shooter. I guess it's still a broadly equivalent experience, and if this was the only way you played it... I mean, it'd be all right. But I don't think it'd be anything special, which is the most damning thing.