Conker is one of Rare's most iconic characters, largely because he's a complete subversion of everything a cute, platforming mascot should be. Originally conceived as your typical fluffy hero, Conker only really found fame when Chris Seavor - he of Rusty Pup fame - took the character and turned him on his head, creating Conker's Bad Fur Day, one of the N64's funniest and most unique offerings. A title packed with crude humour and amazing surprises, it was remastered on the Xbox when Microsoft acquired Rare, but - outside of Project Spark - the character has been criminally underused since.
Rare and Microsoft are now giving Conker a new lease of life, but sadly it's not in a way that dedicated fans will have expected. A new video showing off Microsoft's HoloLens headset shows "Young Conker" (presumably because "Old Conker" would have spent the entire duration turning the air blue and fighting massive talking turds) dashing around a living room in an attempt to illustrate the potential of the augmented reality gaming.
Even Seavor himself - who supplied the voice over for the clip - is a little lost for words:
The end result is certainly interesting from a technical perspective, and makes us wish that Nintendo had made more use of the 3DS console's AR properties. However, we're constantly distracted by the fact that Conker looks like he's been stretched on a torture rack.
Comments 66
I really don't like Young Conker's design. It just looks really off-putting.
Only thing doing Rare justice is KI.
Oh dear God what the hell is that thing? Its like some deformed offspring!
Kill it with corn!
"Conker is a much beloved property...lets never use it for good and instead, redesign it beyond recognizion and use it as a merketing gimmik"
The Hololens... were they call non holograms, holograms.
And this also shows how far Rare has fallen.
RIP conker.
Wow....
Another reason I don't like Microsoft.
/puke
And this is another marketing trick! the holograms only cover 1/4 of the screen when you wear the Hololens (something they basically lie about with all their Hololens marketing bullsh*t.)
This stuff won't be fun and awesome for another 4-5 years (when it finally uses the entirety of its screen real-estate)
Conker will be missed.
1999-2016
I didn't know Tim Robbins (Clayton)was in game design!
Kill it with fire.
Good night, sweet prince.
What in the world have they done? Just when you think they couldn't mess up any worse, they come out with Young Conker. It's wrong on so many levels... just look at that thing. Someone needs to put it out of its misery.
They should have used a new IP. Or Bubsy. This would suit Bubsy more I reckon.
BURN THE THING THEN USE A BURN HEAL THEN BURN IT AGAIN
If this is the new Conker, it officially makes the Bakeoff Squirrel the rudest and coolest squirrel ever.
Oh God,they turned Conker into the scaredy squirrel.
It's crazy obvious they're trying to be very very much like Apple with that video. Apple puts out similar videos with developers talking similarly about how awesome and life-changing whatever happens to be their new product is, and this is practically a carbon copy of that.
Too bad it comes off as a fan made parody because of how very terribly bad the actual product/content is. X'D
Oh, god...
It's like they put Conker and Slippy Toad in a blender, and that was the result.
Someone at Microsoft hates Rare's guts, and so they're perpetrating some twisted, unholy revenge fantasy by desecrating one of their most iconic characters. That's the only way I can make sense of this.
No...NO! Get that thing away from me! Take it away!
The game could start off with "Apologies to Jon Jafari" as a disclaimer. Poor JonTron is gonna drown in his own tears at the sight of this video.
This is literally the worst thing I've ever seen. Like, I'm shocked my eyes haven't began bleeding. Oh, wait nevermind there they go.
@KrakenSoup
Seeing red, are we?
Eye injuries are something I get pretty much squeamish at, so I'm surprised I was able to crack a joke.
The weirdest part is the "Young Conker" looks older and more deformed than "Old Conker"
It's like none of the guys in that video played a Conker game before.
May I throw up? No? Welp, I already did, sorry.
So, I love AR, I'd love to own and develop for Hololens, I love the idea of this platformer on a technical scale. What I don't love is what they did to conker. I think I would have been genuinely happier if they just used Banjo and Kazooie again. At least they're already ruined, and they wouldn't need a large change in design and age rating.
From what I can tell it's just a tech demo, no need to get your Nintendos in a knot over a conker game with an ugly model
The last time I was this confused was with the Milo project. And why are they trying to be humble by only showing everyone's first names. Firstly, they're Microsoft. And secondly, I want to know who the hell they are for f**k sake!
And yes, I should point out. Rare has only been a name for quite a while. There are a few people who still remain from the older eras but most of them are gone.
For as good as the game looks, why Conker?
I think this sums things up nicely...
Kill me
Just...who thought this was a good idea? No really, who?
Conker, oh how you had fallen.
That is an abomination... I hope they never use that model anywhere else or I'll cry xD
@NintendoFan64 No sane person that's for sure. It can't be unseen! This apalling image is forever etched on the inside of my eyelids!
Disgusting...
LOL who was surprised by this considering that Rare is a shell of its former self anyway?
Flippin Heck!! I cannot believe what I just watched. I have no idea if I should bust out laughing or shed tears of sadness.
:3
Conker's image has been ruined with lackluster gimmicks and forced juvenility since 2001. At this point, there's really not much more they can do to him, except for angering those who began to like him because he's "hurr durr 'adult'".
Christ, how horrifying.
What the f**k has Microsoft done to this beloved character?
Who do I have to find and punch in the face to right this wrong. . . .
He looks so disgusting, get it off my screen
@KrakenSoup I honestly don't know what scares me more: the fact that someone out there came up with this and thought it was a good idea, or the fact that people at Microsoft and Rare decided to go along with it.
And people will still be satisfied by this because most of them don't even know or remember who Conker is/was. And they will think this is okay.
Starting the video with "Conker is a much beloved property". Oh, business speak... I'm sure nobody says they love the Conker "property". I liked the Conker character in Diddy Kong Racing.
Jontron is not going to be happy...
Hahaha! Oh boy.. :'D
Seriously though, imagine Chibi Robo or Pikmin with similar AR... :3
@KTT No they won't think this is okay. Young Conker looks off-putting just on face (get it?) value.
Are they doing this to make Project Spark look better in comparison. IF they wanted to mangle an orange cartoon character why not use Blinx? No one cares about him.
Hololens is one of those things that look much more impressive than they probably feel. I can't imagine ever wanting to play anything on it, as much as that E3 presentation last year made it look cool.
I usually am not too picky but even I don't like the model they used for Young Conker in that video. Shame he isn't in a full blown adventure like his N64 outing but I guess the market for 3D platforming adventure games is pretty much gone.
@mjc0961
Of course not! Even "butthurt Gen II fans" like me, or other users such as @NintendoFan64 did.
(Sorry for bringing up the Gen III debate again, it was just an in-joke dating back to our earlier sort-of discussion.)
@Ralizah I hope they keep their grimy hands off my precious Banjo and Kazooie
kill it until it's dead
Why did they do it again? It's like MS/Rare like to kill everything.
@Yorumi
The tech is cool, but it seems like the Devs got very lazy and slapped the name Conker on the title in an attempt to win back old fans.
rip
Well, it looks unique in a way. But if it will be any good, I don't know. Rest assured, this is not the sequel that the fans wanted.
Watching this is actually really depressing... Oh Conker, how far you've fallen.
Putting aside the eldritch horror that is that Conker design, I think this kind of gimmicky application of VR is my problem with the technology: it could be really cool, but I'm not sure if people are really going to find something worthwhile to do with it. This Conker thing is a gimmick that will be forgotten a few hours after someone purchases it.
'It's a Windows 10 device'. Well, this project's fate is sealed already then!
@ottospooky Zing!
I love the negativity on here! Yeah, the Conker design is debatable. The game isn't made by Rareware themselves (of course), and its not the game Conker fans had hoped for. But it DOES look unique and innovative! If Nintendo did something like this with Mario, the majority on this site would say: WOOOOOW that's cool and innovative! Lol!!
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