Conkers: Live and...Cut?

[Great Rumbler]

Some exerts from an IGN article:

Conker: Live & Reloaded is an utterly foul game. There's an unending stream of curse words from Conker and those he meets, though all of these are bleeped. Originally Microsoft had called the remade game, Conker: Live & Uncut, but wisely changed the name because this is not in any way an uncensored version of Bad Fur Day. In fact, the N64 version actually had some un-bleeped swearing. Sure, the F-bomb was always censored, but every now and then a s--- would get through, which made things even funnier. Here, Microsoft has upped the bleeps as almost nothing makes it through safely, not ever "twat," which I didn't even know was considered a curse word by even the most modest of people.

Conker's Bad Fur Day on the N64 was a pretty challenging game. All told, it took me close to 20 hours to beat the first time through. But on Xbox? Seven hours even. Granted, I knew pretty much everything I had to do, but the Xbox version of Bad Fur Day is far easier than the N64 original. In fact, only two areas caused me any difficulties. Hoverboard racing across lava is still tough, especially dodging the brontosaurus that keeps pacing the track. Towards the end of the game, you must maneuver a tank around a very narrow passage while hopping out to lower bridges, all the while avoiding a rotating turret and grenade-lobbing Tediz (think Teddy bears meet Nazis).

Both of these moments took some time, but otherwise Conker's fairly easy this time out. That's not such a bad thing, since experiencing the humor is what's most important. Again, multiplayer was the focus, so Rare didn't want gamers stuck on the single-player for too long. I'd guess that a player totally new to Conker would need about 10 hours to get through the entire single-player campaign.

One reason it's a little shorter than before is because, well, the game is actually shorter than before. A few game challenges have been shortened and some removed all-together. Fans of the original may remember the glorious task of swimming through the water attempting to lead an electric eel through three hoops. That's no longer a part of Conker. That's the most notable exclusion, though a few others seem shorter and certainly easier than before. Still, the bulk of gameplay and all of the humor remains.

I guess Conker was just a bit too hardcore for the Xbox. ;)

IGN Xbox

[OB1]

Heh. Remember that BMX XXX was also the most "uncut" on the GC.

I heard that there's going to be an option to completely unbleep the game, but who knows...

The length stuff, I don't mind them taking out a few tedious tasks.

[Sacred Jellybean]

WHOOSH! That was the sound of the last of my interest in the X-Box console flying out the window. This is a bit of a let-down, as I would have adored a completely uncut and revamped version of Conker (one that contained EVERYTHING from its N64 predecessor). I'm sure the online multiplayer is wonderful and compensates for this, but honestly, the funnest part of Conker for me was its single player. The multiplayer was indeed always fun for my friends and I, but our focus was always primarily on Perfect Dark :)

[Great Rumbler]

I just find it amusing that Rare it "toning it down" for the Xbox release.

Xbox fanboy: Yeah, we're getting an uncut version of Conkers that Nintendo would NEVER allow on the N64! Nintendo was just holding Rare down! Besides the N64 is kiddie!

Me: They're bleeping more stuff in Conkers and they took out or altered some of the more difficult tasks.

Xbox fanboy: Well...Rare just wants to make it a better game!

[OB1]

Well seriously, taking out some filler crap can make for a better game. I hate filler.

[Smoke]

Sure but why did they make the game easier?

[OB1]

Well there were some really cheap moments. Like swimming through those stupid blades...

[A Black Falcon]

Definitely is a takedown of X-Box fans... :)

[Great Rumbler]

But why censor more words than the N64 version did? I thought they were pulling out the stops for the more grown-up audience?

[A Black Falcon]

I guess not...

[Great Rumbler]

I guess not, indeed.

[Sacred Jellybean]

The title of this thread is "Conkers...". Who are you, Invader Zim? :p

[lazyfatbum]

They removed parts of the game?? REMOVED?? and then made it easier?? There were two things that made Conker great: The lmao cursing... a given. And the challenge! That game was H A R D, especially if you were going for perfect scores!

On the N64 version, the Great Mighty Poo sang "I am the great mighty poo and i'm going to throw my shit at you": is it gonna be throw my bleep at you!? "How about some bleep you little bleep"?? gah! IT'S AN OPERA FOR FUCK'S SAKE, YOU CANT BLEEP SOMETHING AS COOL AS AN OPERA WHERE A GIANT TURD SINGS SOPRANO!

oh man, this is a big let down. This was the one title I was looking forward to on XBox... I cant believe they 'edited it for content' like that. :crap:

Hopefully, there's a code in the game to make it remove the filter and put the edited content back. They can call it the "Now that you finished the wank fest, here's the real game" version.

[lazyfatbum]

Why did they even call it Un-Cut in the first place!

Rare: b/c he never had a hair cut lol....

[The Former DMiller]

That's very disappointing. Maybe I hadn't been following the development of Conker close enough, but I thought they were actually going to add some scenes that were cut from the original. The censoring is horrible if great scenes like the Great Mighty Poo are censored. I never cared about the enhanced multiplayer in the first place so I don't think I'll be picking this one up.

[OB1]

There are new scenes in the game.

[lazyfatbum]

Like what?

[OB1]

Well supposedly there's this little Kill Bill spoof in there.

Supposedly.

[Dark Jaguar]

The only thing they need to add is a Lord of the Rings spoof...

Anyway, I played the demo included with Jade Empire. Seems pretty funny. It took me from the beaches of Normandy to electrocuting some soldier... and Conker was reading a magazine with Halo 2 on it and something about how it was "2 million times as polygon!" or something. But yeah, it was pretty easy come to think of it. I can't relate it to the original, so I can't say if it's easiER, but it was easy. Um, that was AFTER the part where I'm running from guard post to guard post to avoid enemy fire (hard until you actually figure out what the hell you are supposed to be doing, GET ME OUTTA HERE!).

But anyway, removed content... never good... ever... Well, maybe if the content was something like a 30 minute blank screen with a HORRIBLE sound in the background the whole time, but that's about it, and I would only want them to cut it down to 10 seconds :D. IGN is reviewing an "almost done" version, but it hasn't gone gold yet, has it? Have they clicked "save" for the last time or are they still scrambling to get everything done in time for release? But there's more! This is an XBox Live game. This means 2 things. One, it's not a Rare game if it's not glitched, so they can fix all the glitches we'll be finding now. Two, they can add content, to single player even, so there's that. WILL they? That is, they do need to design the game with the right "hooks" to be upgraded in single player. But anyway, there's still the chance they just aren't done with it yet (slim though right now, I mean, they played the entire thing through front to back in the last preview). But anyway, I'll check out the final review when it's golden. Here's hoping the dropped content is added back in and there's some sort of difficulty selection at the start of the game. I want my thumbs to BLEED when I play a Rare game!

[OB1]

Removing content is good sometimes. For instance, if you have a game with a hundred levels and five of them suck, you take out those five levels. If you're making a movie and some of the scenes you shot bring down the quality of the movie, you take out those scenes. If developers were to include everything that they made for a game you would have a huge mess. Content is cut all of the time.

[A Black Falcon]

But if you have a 20-hour game and you cut it to a 10-hour game, you either cut a lot or made it a LOT easier... that's bad.

[Sacred Jellybean]

I thought most of Conker's Bad Fur Day was fun as hell, albiet frustrating and difficult. There were only a few parts I thought were cheap, such as the aforementioned spinning blades you must swim through. Most of the content was good challenging, instead of mindnumbingly-frustratingly-difficult-leaving-no-incentive-to-complete-whatsoever. I would have prefered that hardly any content is cut at all, and that the difficult parts stayed difficult. There's no sense of pride in completing a game that's way too easy. :)

[A Black Falcon]

There's no sense of pride in completing a game that's way too easy.

Definitely.

[The Former DMiller]

I never thought there was anything in the original Conker that was cheap. Maybe the swimming through the blades part, but I don't consider something cheap if I enjoy myself while trying to get past it. I enjoyed every bit of the original Conker, which is why I'm disappointed they are taking anything out.

[OB1]

I thought some things were tedious. Not Donkey Kong 64-tedious, but some cuts are welcome. How much they cut, however, remains to be seen.

[A Black Falcon]

DK64 is great if you didn't play B-K before it... but after playing one Rare N64 platformer, the others feel too similar, really... that's a good part of why I didn't finish B-T. Just too similar to DK64 for it to fully feel worth my time, given how much time I spent in DK64.

[lazyfatbum]

OB1, removeing a scene you shot for a film is alot different than spending MONTHS on deving a level or character and then taking it out. Removing or changing aspects of a game happens in prepro long before it goes to coding. The game has to be finished 'on paper' before coders ever touch it.

I cant think of a single developer that would remove levels or areas because they're too tedious. Most of the time they end up adding more tedium just to boost the length of the game. Cutting that length is a last resort and is only done if the game is buggy because of it.

[OB1]

The only time that would be the case is if they're running out of time and need to get the game shipped ASAP. But in this case, where Rare is remaking an old game and can look at what works and what doesn't, that's no longer an issue. It doesn't matter how much prep work you do, you cannot guarantee that something is going to work well or not until you can actually play it. This seems to have been the case, and my only hope is that Rare hasn't lost their good judgement.

[Great Rumbler]

my only hope is that Rare hasn't lost their good judgement.

They haven't exactly given us a reason to think that's the case, unfortunately.

[OB1]

They haven't really had a chance to.

[Great Rumbler]

Judging from their last two games though...

[OB1]

SFA was rushed and crapped on by Nintendo, and Ghoulies was rushed as well. Rare can't do rushed.

[The Former DMiller]

SFA was rushed? That game was in development forever. It may have been rushed somewhat at the end, but that's only because Nintendo wanted to finally get that game out the door.

[OB1]

It was rushed because Nintendo made Rare change the entire theme of the game to Star Fox, and they had to basically create an entirely new game for the Gamecube. So yes, it was definitely rushed. By Rare standards.

[Great Rumbler]

By Rare standards just about anything is rushed, except maybe Duke Nuken Forever. They had [what?] over two years to make the changes? Even if they had to change a lot of the game they should have had most of the basic structure intact. As for Grabbed by the Ghoulies, they had absolutely no reason to rush it, other than to confirm what most people believed, that Nintendo made the right choice in selling Rare.

[OB1]

Two years to make a game as good-looking as SFA on a brand-new piece of hardware isn't rushing it??

And you're very naive if you think that they had no reason to rush GBTG.

[Dark Jaguar]

Yeah, SFA was the product of Nintendo kicking Rare out the door and taking whatever was left on their hard drive and sending out to us. Well, figuratively speaking of course. Grabbed was MS's attempt at quickly getting SOME profit out of Rare as soon as possible, but that didn't go over too well.

Banjo for GBA though, THAT shows that Rare still has it, if they are just allowed the time they need.

So, I have high hopes for PD0, and interest in this game. I must say that the idea of dropped content does not sit well with me, and the lowered difficulty is certainly a negative (praying for a difficulty select mode here), but it may still be fun. I will say this, I am going to use YOUR brains as a sort of filter before the game gets to me. You are all now drafted into the service of reviewing the game for me. You'll do it, oh yes you will.

[OB1]

I'm not buying Conker, though. Not at full price, anyways.

[Great Rumbler]

I may get it, but the price will have to be pretty low for that to happen.

[Paco]

The title of this thread is "Conkers...". Who are you, Invader Zim? :p

OMG! I love Invader Zim!

The curse words being beeped out is not a deal breaker for me.

[Geno]

I'm definitely not buying it because I need an Xbox first. :confused2

[Great Rumbler]

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Okay...?

[Paco]

I still think Nintendo selling off Rare was about the dumbest thing they've ever done. How many million sellers did Rare have on the Super NES and N64? Several, including one of the must-haves of the 32/64-bit generation, Goldeneye. Perfect Dark and Conker received critical acclaim, however they were released when the 64 was on its' way out.

Starfox Adventures was great, however it shouldn't have been a starfox game. That was a bad call on Nintendo's part. I was looking forward to the new Donkey Kong Racing game, Diddy Kong Racing 0wn3d Mario Kart, imo.

[Laser Link]

Banjo for GBA though, THAT shows that Rare still has it, if they are just allowed the time they need.

But Banjo Pilot was mind-numbingly boring, so what does that say? I don't know if it was rushed or not, but it too sounds like a half finished product that got thrown out the door at the last minute- and that seems to be a trend as of late with Rare. For whatever reason.

And they weren't exactly spectacular at the end of the N64 era either. What was that Mickey's Happy Racing crap that was supposed to be a follow up to the glorious DKR (which, if you'll remember, was developed so quickly that nobody even knew the game existed until a few months before it was out). Banjo Tooie was great even though it felt too much like the other platformers, but that and Conker were about it in the last couple years. They had a looooooooooong time to work on DP/SFA. Let's not forget that Retro was originally working on an original game, and only made the switch to Metroid after Nintendo told them too. Same as Rare with DP/SFA. I'm not saying that it was an easy task, only that it has been done. And Retro went through more than their share of problems at the beginning, but still got out a fantastic product.

[OB1]

Well Metroid Prime was developed about as much by EAD as Retro, according to Retro themselves.

[lazyfatbum]

SFA was in development for eons. It wasn't rushed at all except for the Arwing sections, final boss and of course the Fox team members models which all look and play perfect.

The game just lacked Rare's gameplay magic. But many of the key players left Rare and started other companies.

I always found it funny that their first game for XBox was named 'Grabbed by the Ghoulies'.

[OB1]

Yeah, it's actually pretty dirty. In British slang "ghoulies" means balls, testicles.

I would definitely say that SFA was rushed. They basically had to recreate the game from the ground up for the Gamecube. It was no port, and you know that. They had a relatively short dev time for the GC version.

This E3 will show if Rare has indeed lost it or not. Expect to see Perfect Dark Zero and possibly even Kameo for XBox 2.

[A Black Falcon]

And we'll see about the rumor of PD0 being a X-Box 2 launch title. :)

But yes, I'd definitely say that Rare has lost its way, as I said earlier... it's pretty clear when you just look at their games. Or lack of them.

Yes, yes, I know, starting over, etc... but still... they got GbtG out! Why couldn't they do anything else in the whole time since then?

[OB1]

IGN says that it's definitely going to be there, that it is not a rumor.

[Great Rumbler]

I think the chances of it being a Xbox360 launch games are quite small, however.