So I’ve put down Battlefield 2 long enough to play some Conker: Live and Reloaded online for a bit. I’m having a lot of fun with it. Classes, vehicles, weapons, there’s enough variety to not get bored. The maps have some varied mission types, it’s not all CTF. The graphics are pretty stellar and I enjoy the little touches like how you duck if a missle whizzes by or grenade goes off and the comments when you shoot and kill your enemies. Persistant stats with medals and ranking up keep you trying for more.
There’s a learning curve, you’ve got at least two weapons, two grenade types, a utility gun (heal, hack, repair) the weapons have multiple fire modes and special abilities. Also there’s no tutorial for the maps, so expect some frustration until your figure out what goes where and what the objectives are. I recommend the dumbots offline for that.
I actually just traded it in. I expected it to make me put away my old N64 copy, but it’s just not happening.
The multiplayer felt like it lost all the quirkiness that made the N64 Conker dear to my heart. The removal of other games like “Heist” to multiple characters (french squirrels, weasels, etc.) and the addition of all class-based weapon loadouts effectively squashed all enjoyment for me.
I loved Conker for the fact that it wasn’t just a shooter, it was a shooter with style and a certain amount of goofiness. This new one felt to me just like when comics went through the “bad girls/Liefeld shoulder pad hero with guns” time of the 90s, when everything had to be gritty and full of attitude.
Also, I miss when Tediz spurted stuffing instead of blood.
I never played the N64 original, but I tried the demo of this the other day, and I gotta tell you… not doing it for me. It feels like every generic, sub-par third-person shooter ever made, with the added benefit of making me sit through extremely bad “jokes” now and again. And Conker’s voice is incredibly annoying.
Yeah, I’ve never played the multi on the original either so I can’t really comment on the differences there, but there is a significant difference between the Saving Private Ryan part of the single player and the multiplayer game.
Well, I’m guessing the demo was the Saving Private Ryan sequence that was also the demo on the Jade Empire disc. If that’s the case, you should realize that the game isn’t really a shooter. It’s very much a platformer with some shooter sequences thrown in. It’s really a bad level to use for a demo since it doesn’t represent the whole game at all.
The clerk at GameRush told me this week that he had people canceling their pre-orders after they played the demo. I can’t believe MS let Rare keep the ridiculous difficulty level of the game and then release one of the most difficult and annoying parts of the game as a demo.
