[fingersman]

Here's impression on conker


Outside the eight-minute demo of Halo 2, the biggest surprise at Microsoft's E3 press conference was the blink-and-you'll-miss-it announcement of Conker: Live and Uncut. The uncensored and graphically revamped re-telling of Rare's stellar N64 game was not only announced at the press conference -- it's playable on the show floor!
The brand new Xbox Live-enabled multiplayer was on disable in eight connected kiosks. Using superior sneakery skills, I managed to slip into the Microsoft booth a day early to get a first taste of Conker against several unsuspecting Microsoft employees. I'll admit that I was desperately jonesing to play the unavailable single-player game, but MS wants to push the Xbox Live aspects of the game. The results -- a mixed bag of nuts.

Conker, everyone's favorite miscreant, is one of several playable skills. The Live arena in which I played against seven other victims, err competitors, was a relatively small map. However, the map features a lot of vertical movement, which makes for some interesting sniping moments.

Controls are as simple as humanly possible. You can jump if you are unarmed or are only holding a grenade with the X button, while Y cycles through your three available weapons, the left trigger hurls a grenade, and right trigger fires. Along with a wide assortment of killing devices, power-ups in the form of glowing energy horseshoes can be run over to give you an extra kick.

One of the power-ups is a weapon enhancer, so that each of your weapons takes on a new level of power. I nabbed this and turned my normal bazooka into a guided missile launcher.

Weapons include pistols, mahcineguns, uzis, grenades, sniper rifles, and bazookas. Respawning in a weapons room filled with available goodies doesn't hurt, but you can only hold three weapons at a time. Go over the limit and you'll drop your current weapon and replace it with the new one.

The raw humor and blood that permeated the N64 classic are evident in just about every moment of Conker: Live and Uncut. The gruesome explosive deaths where bloody bits fall scattered on the ground are back and pretty much identical to the original. New voices have been added, though, that add quite a bit. All the little furry bastards grumble and offer quips as they ace enemies or get blasted themselves.

Beyond your standard furries capping each other, the level featured a helicopter for each team which could lift off and fire down on enemies from above. But nail one of these with a couple of bazooka blasts and they're only so much charged death.

Conker online plays like a very simplified online shooter. It's relatively easy to aim and shoot down enemies with a slow moving reticle that doesn't require precise aiming. The movement and control of your character, however, isn't quite as fluid as it could be. There are times when navigating the terrain isn't easy, simply because the control over the character just isn't as exact as it needs to be. It's not terrible, but it feels slightly off, something that will hopefully be fixed before Conker's release -- whenever that might be.

The team deathmatch I played was pretty standard in set-up, though it was nice to see people could jump in and out of the never-ending deathmatch at their leisure. Any other online modes (and there certainly are more hiding out there) weren't revealed tonight, but with luck, MS will unveal more of Conker during E3... which is just half a day away.

One of the things Rare and Microsoft promised with Conker: Live and Uncut was updated graphics. If the Xbox Live version is any indication, the graphics are certainly above those found in the N64. The textures are a lot better and the game looks sharper. The greater detail certainly helps. But the game, as it stands, is considerably choppy in many moments. While it certainly looks next-gen, it's not really cutting-edge Xbox graphics. Still, I'll take a sly mouth over smooth graphics any day of the week.

Outlook
The Live play of Conker seems fun. The overall goal, as it's been described to me is Conker meets Counter-Strike. If the other game modes have the Conker flare with some C-S style objectives, then maybe Conker-Strike will be a reality. It's fun, but I think the Live play has a ways to go. Now, where the hell is my poo gun?

-- Hilary Goldstein