Review: Conker Live and Reloaded

[Ruined]

Conker: Live and Reloaded
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=210606

So... Rare's second game on the XBOX, the first being the vastly underappreciated Grabbed by the Ghoulies. Does Conker stand up to other great Live titles? Did Rare score?

GRAPHICS: 10.0
Bar none, the best graphics on the XBOX to date. Pretty amazing coming from a remake of an N64 game. If you want to see the best graphics on XBOX, Conker is where its at. Amazing fur, characters, lush backgrounds, etc.

SOUND: 9.7
Highly polished audio and speech along with a fantastic soundtrack earn conker high marks in the sound department. The surround field is also actively used in this game, with events occuring in the surround speakers frequently. Technically superb, only held back from perfection by the content of the game.

CONTROLS: 8.5
Controls in conker are good and responsive, but in single player mode the manual camera may take some getting used to; the user controls the camera at all times. Single player left stick moves, right stick is camera, A is jump, B is equip weapon, right trigger is swing weapon. With no weapon equipped, Right trigger crouches. Holding A after jumping results in a slow tailspin descent similar to Rayman 2's helicopter. Multiplayer controls are responsive but difficult to learn without reading the manual.

GAMEPLAY: 9.0
Single player mode is very simply the original N64 game with incredible amazing graphics and sounds - it plays the same. Multiplayer mode is very unique, sort of like Return to Castle Wolfenstein or Team Fortress in play, except with fluffy animals. There are several classes, all with different strengths and weaknesses similar to TF, and like RTCW there are objectives to complete in order to win the game. The game is very gory in multiplayer with blood spraying everywhere (including on the screen) and body parts flying. Multiplayer can be confusing at first and remains confusing unless you read the manual - there is really no tutorial (again, similar to RTCW for XBOX which did not provide a significant online tutorial). However once mastered the game is very intense, and the matches can be pretty incredible with 16 furry friends gutting each other to death online. Overall, the game is well polished however a tutorial for the online mode would have been very helpful. Still, the manual provides all you need to know.

OVERALL: 9.3
One of the best games on XBOX, that is incredibly deep once you learn how to play. An excellent conversion of the original Conker plus a very deep, enjoyable online mode make this game a must-buy. Remember though, you need to RTFM before you get online

[MooglePorn]

I played the demo and thought it was very average.

[Bananaslug79]

I hate to be a sarcastic bastard most of the time (okay, that's a lie), but I have to wonder: do you work for Microsoft, Ruined?

[Engineer_J]

Poor Rare, no buzz = low sales again, don't think MS is going to make back that billion dollars anytime soon