The game begins after a night of binge drinking at the local pub. The first mission involves getting the drunk squirrel home. As he is crawling on his way home he runs into a scarecrow who introduces him to the basic game play controls. Our hero also sobers up at this time. However his journey crosses the path of an evil panther-like lord which develops a personal vendetta against our little party animal protagonist. The story behind the game is one of survival and battle against evil through an action packed platformer full of combat arts and shooting.

The controls are smooth, and bring to mind arcade classics like Crash Bandicoot. There are a lot of fun gaming instances where you can pick up special moves by running over huge circles scattered throughout the game with a big “B” logo atop them. To start some special action you just run on top of these circles and press the correct button. This, strangely, is a lot of fun, because the game designers did absolutely everything in an unconventional way. Close combat mechanics tend to have a flaw, though - most opponents are easily defeated by sneaking up and hitting them over the head, quickly moving back to dodge their attacks, and repeating said tactic as many times as needed. The rest of the in-game fighting follows logic coupled with decent AI.

The 3D engine behind Conker: Live & Reloaded is impressive. The load times are minimal and the game optimizes the Xbox hardware to its very maximum. You will easily notice a clever use of dynamic shadows, fluid simulations and smooth character animations. The textures are sharp, and many are very unique, giving the world a bizarre look most of the time. Even the introductory interface is a design beauty, as it is a pub! I will leave it to you to discover its inner works. As far as the cut scenes go, they move the story forward and show the artistic talent in Rare’s development team. The audio in general is sharp, and full of good voice acting that blends into the story. The music that follows the game is non-intrusive and I found it very supportive in bringing the bizarre game world to life. All of the above components show that the audio budget was not overlooked, and that audio was designed to be an integral part of the game.

The multiplayer gaming in Conker: Live & Reloaded is a blast. There are recreations of some fun game and movie classics (Medal of Honor: Beach Map – Conker Style) and maps that are purely original in design. The multiplayer game objectives are similar to a myriad of Xbox Live multiplayer games, yet the fact that all of the characters are furry little creatures adds another layer of charm to it. There are large and small battles, and there are even bots available if you are in need of practice before challenging human opponents. System link and split screen are supported, but if you are not using Xbox Live you will be limited to three opponents.

Overall, I recommend Conker: Live & Reloaded as a nice little break from the conventional gaming. There are a few minor glitches here in there mainly in the combat tactics, but overall it is the originality of the game’s story and overall world that shows major value.