Here's Conker Before His Bad Fur Day

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The Wooster

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Jul 15, 2008
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Here's Conker Before His Bad Fur Day

Recently discovered footage sheds light on N64 anti-mascot's embarrassingly un-sordid past.

It's common knowledge that Rare's Conker didn't start his life as the foul-mouthed, perpetually drunk, hyper-violent womanizer we know and love. Instead, he was to be just another cutesy anthropomorphized animal in yet another cutesy N64 platformer. Eventually, Rare realized that Conker wouldn't just be competing against Mario 64, he'd also be going head to head with one of the developer's own titles, Banjo-Kazooie.

Thus, Twelve Tales: Conker 64 was reborn as Conker's Bad Fur Day, and Conker himself was essentially recast as a tiny squirrel version of Oliver Reed. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Reed] While Bad Fur Day didn't sell exceptionally well, largely thanks to a distinct lack of advertising, it did go on to become a cult classic.

While we've seen brief snippets of gameplay and the odd screenshot from Twelve Tales, the video in the above right is the longest, most in-depth, look we've had at the game. The footage was uncovered by Rare fan site, Rare Minion [http://rareminion.com/twelvetales.html], and it goes a long way toward explaining the radical change in direction. I got to around the four minute mark before the unbearably twee soundtrack and constant cries of "yeeheehee" made me want to start digging out my own ear canals. I don't doubt the game would have been brilliant, this is N64-era Rare we're talking about after all, but this video makes this version of the title look like little more than a slightly more annoying version of Banjo-Kazooie.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to listen to some classical music. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w5neFPat1w]

Source: Rare Minion [http://rareminion.com/twelvetales.html]



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Squilookle

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Nov 6, 2008
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I always loved the story behind the making of Bad Fur Day. Rare starts work on Twelve Tales, realises it's already done the 'cutesy platformer' several times already, and goes '#$% it- we're making it an M rated gory, poo filled, sexual innuendo saturated masterpiece.

And so they did.




______________________________________________________________________________
EDIT: Having now seen the whole thing, a few thoughts came rushing in:

Damn I miss that blue and gold Rare logo...

Wow, it really does seem like another Banjo Kazooie with the menus. Not a bad thing, by the way.

Hey, check out Beardy er... Birdy! Didn't know he was around this early.

Ha! always knew those dancing mushrooms and sunflowers must've been from TT.

That underwater bit was amazing- music changed right on cue.

Holy Cow, after twelve years we finally get to see what was inside the windmill! well... sort of.

Oh sweet- those Frogs from Diddy Kong Racing are back. I could flatten them all day in DKR, and here you can punch their lights out!

About 10 mins in, we get that pretty cool flying fox ride- funny how the music there actually suits the action here better than it did in CBFD, where it played pretty much just the same.

Damn, CBFD needed more hats.

Those birds/meerkats/seahorses? were unnerving. What were they all about!?

If you thought Conker made too much noise, boy... don't get caught in those dust devils...

Pretty cool being able to play as Berri. Was she even a multiplayer character in CBFD?

Final Thoughts?

[HEADING=2]Still better than anything Rare made for Microsoft[/HEADING]
 

TaintedSaint

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Sorry but even when it came out conker was not that great of a game. If it was not for all the M rated stuff it would have been just another mediocre platformer.
 

Scrustle

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This looks really weird. It's like a parody of video games you would see in a kid's cartoon.
 

GoddyofAus

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I'm somewhat happy it turned out the way it did. BFD is an absolute classic and the greatest 3D platformer of all time.
 

Piorn

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Dec 26, 2007
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Oh man, it's like someone found an old porn video of a celebrity, only reversed.
So embarrasing!
 

Sylveria

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Nov 15, 2009
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I totally disagree about the game not being advertised well.. in fact the Conker's Bad Fur Day commercial is one of the few I remember from the N64 era. I'd say if anything it didn't sell well because the advertising nailed it too good.. it was a raunchy, perverse game staring a squirrel and the commercials reflected that in an era were gaming was still seen as "for kids"
 

Leemaster777

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Feb 25, 2010
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Piorn said:
Oh man, it's like someone found an old porn video of a celebrity, only reversed.
So embarrasing!
That's exactly what I was thinking.
Scrustle said:
This looks really weird. It's like a parody of video games you would see in a kid's cartoon.
Also what I was thinking. Except it's even stranger when you realize that CBFD was ITSELF a parody.
 

Playful Pony

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Sep 11, 2012
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I miss this game so much... We always played this on my cousins N64, back in the day when we were far too young, and local multiplayer was a godsend to awkward young people such as myself and my similarily nerdy cousin.
 

Lt. Rocky

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Jan 4, 2012
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Oh wow, what a treat. I just started playing Conker's Bad Fur Day last weekend.

You know Darwinism is at work when a red squirrel goes from being a cute and cuddley dream pet you'd expect to see on a Saturday morning cartoon, to a foul-mouthed hedonist with a vague British accent. Stay classy Rare, even if you are making Kinect games nowadays..
 

SD-Fiend

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I'd like to play a finished version of this. It's could be a prequel to BFD.
 

crazyrabbits

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Jul 10, 2012
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Rare made a damn good decision changing it to BFD. While Twelve Tales may have sold well, I'd be surprised if it (in the form I see in this video) would have been regarded as anything but a joke in the present. The material seems so...saccharine that it feels like it was created by a committee dedicated to homogenizing any trace of originality or satire in the product.