Conker the Squirrel

Conker the Squirrel is a fictional anthropomorphic squirrel starring in various video games, primarily known for his role in Conker's Bad Fur Day. He first appeared alongside Diddy Kong in Nintendo's Diddy Kong Racing. Other appearances outside of the Conker series included Project Spark. Conker is voiced by Chris Seavor in all of his appearances.

Conker the Squirrel
Conker character
Conker the Squirrel as he appears in Conker's Bad Fur Day
First appearanceDiddy Kong Racing (1997)
Last appearanceYoung Conker (2016)
Created byRare Ltd
Voiced byChris Seavor[1]
In-universe information
SpeciesSquirrel
GenderMale
Significant otherBerri

History

Conker was introduced for the first time at E3 in 1997. He was set to star in Conker's Quest, a 3D platformer aimed at a young audience, created by Rareware. Later the same year, Conker made his debut with his inclusion in Diddy Kong Racing, for the Nintendo 64, thus promoting his future games. After Conker's Quest being significantly delayed, in the spring of 1998, long after the initial release date, it was renamed as Twelve Tales: Conker 64. In 1999, Conker made his first solo debut in Conker's Pocket Tales for Game Boy Color.

Before its release, the Nintendo 64 game underwent a complete transformation due to criticism for Twelve Tales being called "another kids game". Rare reimagined Conker as an alcoholic, foul-mouthed character who arms himself with weapons.[2] The game was eventually released on March 5, 2001 as Conker's Bad Fur Day, now geared towards a mature audience and featuring sexual content, foul language, drug and alcohol usage, and excessive violence. The game suffered from relatively poor sales on account of its release being close to the end of the N64's lifespan, but received a cult following for it's unique brand of humor.

According to an interview with Chris Seavor, there was to be a sequel, Conker's Other Bad Fur Day, in which Conker had been dethroned, imprisoned, and awaiting execution due to spending the entire royal treasury on beer, parties, and hookers. He then escapes with a ball-and-chain restraint locked on him. The plotline was finished, but due to Microsoft's lack of demand for a Conker Sequel, the game production was shelved.[3]

In 2005, a remake was released for the Xbox known as Conker: Live & Reloaded. This featured Bad Fur Day with vastly improved graphics and minor alterations to gameplay. Also included was a never-before-seen multiplayer adaptation that was available for use over Xbox Live.

After a canceled sequel by Rare, Conker was brought back in the game Project Spark, once again voiced by Seavor. An episodic campaign for the game called Conker's Big Reunion, set 10 years after Bad Fur Day, was released on April 23, 2015.[4]

Appearance

When Conker was introduced in Diddy Kong Racing, he had no gloves, a shirt that was blue in the front, and yellow in the back, blue and yellow Converse All Stars shoes and a flat-looking tail. This appearance was kept for Pocket Tales as well, but was changed in Bad Fur Day; Conker now had gloves, a blue zipper hoodie, and the same shoes, but with the Converse logo removed (likely to avoid copyright issues). In Live and Reloaded, he ditched the gloves (now using his bare hands) and had scruffier fur, giving him a somewhat unshaven appearance, and looked shorter and a tad stubbier. The single-player portion of the game was where his appearance changed drastically; his blue hoodie outfit was now more detailed, with yellow patches and more zippers, and most notably, he was now wearing green and yellow shorts (similar to Banjo's). In Project Spark, Conker's appearance is based on that of Conker's Bad Fur Day, albeit much more detailed.

Appearances

Donkey Kong series (Diddy Kong Racing)/Conker's Pocket Tales

Little is known of the character's origins or his early life. It is known that he had met and befriended Diddy Kong prior to participating in races with Diddy and his friends, though he was never seen in the games preceding Diddy Kong Racing. He was always kind-hearted and polite. After Diddy Kong Racing, in the story of Conker's Pocket Tales, he retrieved birthday presents from evil acorns. In the game, he met a girl known as Berri, and the two quickly became a couple. Berri was originally depicted as a little, cute brown anthropomorphic chipmunk, but her design was changed in Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Bad Fur Day/Live & Reloaded

In Bad Fur Day, Conker's innocent character is changed significantly. He became sarcastic, greedy and a heavy drinker. Still, he tended to maintain a civil demeanor when even faced by the roughest of characters, though he often thinks of snide remarks about them, and even insulted one person at least once.[5] Although Conker drinks, commits lewd conduct and is very greedy, he seldom utters obscenities. Notably, the only truly real swears he has uttered were "fellatio" (albeit out of context), "bitch" and "ass", although the latter two were stated in the context of movie parodies in which the characters from the original movies stated exactly the same lines. He speaks in a lisp combined with a sped-up voice.

In Live and Reloaded, Berri's ditzy traits still remain, but she is also depicted as a porn star, or prostitute of sorts, judging by various references in the remake. Conker and Berri developed an apparently strong relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, as they soon began living together. Berri began to get frustrated with Conker's habit of constantly staying out late at a bar with his friends, until one night, he never returned to his home.

A very drunk Conker stumbled out in the opposite direction of his home, ending up in an entirely unfamiliar area ruled by the wrathful Panther King. A series of very bizarre and unfortunate events ensued before he was reunited with Berri, as well as with a massive quantity of money. He was about to leave with Berri before she was betrayed and murdered by a mafia boss, Don Weaso, eliminating one of Conker's few true loves in the world. After the Panther King was eliminated, the people of the world all gathered at a throne room, pushed Conker onto the throne, shoved a crown on his head, and declared him the king. Although Conker had all the money and land in the world, he came to the realization that he did not want it, and that his only true reason of living was killed before his very eyes.

Conker remained living unhappily as king of this strange world. Eventually his habits came back to him, and he found himself stumbling from the Cock and Plucker Bar, only going the other direction, opposite to the one that leads him to the horrible chain of events. This implies that he ends up going to yet another unusual world, or perhaps, back home, although this has never been further explained.

In Conker's Bad Fur Day, Conker has ten prominent weapons: a pair of MP5-like machine guns (MP5K model), a shotgun, a set of throwing knives, a bazooka, a frying pan, a slingshot, a baseball bat with nails in it, a chainsaw (in the opening credits), a flamethrower and urine. In the opening of Conker's Bad Fur Day, he cut up the Nintendo 64 emblem with a chainsaw in half and replaced it with the Rare logo.

Other appearances

In an Xbox commercial, he was shown with Banjo (Banjo-Kazooie), Joanna Dark and Kameo. Despite meeting Banjo in Diddy Kong Racing, he does not seem to remember him. Conker seems to have a hobby of cutting up logos with chainsaws and replacing them with the "Rare" logo, probably suggesting a twisted patriotism for the company. In the aforementioned commercial, he used a chainsaw to change the word "Xbox" into Rare. His future, both as a franchise and a character, remained uncertain until June 2014, where he was announced to appear in the game Project Spark. In Project Spark, the player could buy Conker's Big Reunion, and the Conker Character Creator pack. However, Conker's Big Reunion has been cancelled due to Microsoft announcing that the game would transition to a new "free and open creation" model,[6] thus ceasing the production of all the downloadable content, including future Conker episodes.[7] In 2016 a game called Young Conker was released for the Microsoft HoloLens.[8] It a features a "younger" version of Conker with a redesign.[9]

Reception

Rare listed Conker as the fifth Rare's video game character who most improved with age.[10] In 2009, Conker was ranked at the fourth place on GameDaily's "Top 25 Anti-Heroes" list, with they stating that "he may not look like an anti-hero, but that's what makes Conker stand out from the rest".[11] IGN listed the "Ten Best Things About Conker: Live and Reloaded", saying "in the end, the reason we love Conker: Live and Reloaded so much is because of the big man himself",[12] and also cited the "everyone's favorite boozy squirrel" among the "Gaming's Most Notorious Anti-Heroes", adding he is "cool".[13] In his appearance in Conker: Live and Reloaded, he was called by GameSpy as "cuter than ever", and Dave Kosak said it "makes it all the funnier when he pukes or looks over his shoulder and blurts out a stream of beeped-out expletives".[14] Stephen Totilo of Kotaku described Conker as "foul-mouthed but cute squirrel."[15] Seth Rector of Screen Rant named Conker as his 3rd "Iconic Video Game Characters & Their MCU Counterparts,"[16] Conker was also named as Mental Floss's "15 Forgotten Video Game Mascots From the 1990s."[17] Jordan Devore of Destructoid has praised Conker's appearance in Project Spark and stated that "There was no getting around the disappointment of seeing a long abandoned (but never forgotten!) character return not in his own adventure, but in a DLC pack for a videogame about making games."[18]

When a Young Conker was showed on Microsoft HoloLens's trailer, it received mostly negative reviews.[19] Chris Plante of The Verge criticized it and said that "Young Conker doesn't feature the original Conker."[20] Sam Loveridge of GameSpy claimed that the scene of Squirrel and the bees is "weird."[21]

GamesRadar stated that Conker was one of their most wanted characters for the crossover fighting video game series Super Smash Bros.[22]

Merchandise

In 2018, A conker based figurine[23] and statue was made.[24]

Further reading
  • Foiles, Lisa (June 2, 2020). "How Realistic Is Video Game Drunkenness?". Kotaku.

References
  1. "Conker the Squirrel Voices (visual voices guide)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved 9 April 2022.
  2. Corrigan, Don H. (February 28, 2019). Nuts About Squirrels: The Rodents That Conquered Popular Culture. McFarland. ISBN 9781476636351 – via Google Books.
  3. "Conker Commands and Conquers". Mundo Rare, Sept. 16, 2008.
  4. "New Conker Game Coming to Project Spark April 23 - IGN" – via www.ign.com.
  5. Conker: Were your parents related? Like, before they were married? Franky: Right! That's it. I am gonna give you a whupping! Here we go!"
  6. "Project Spark Transitions into Free Incubation Engine Next Week". News.Xbox.Com. 28 September 2015. Retrieved 29 September 2015.
  7. Pitcher, Jenna (September 28, 2015). "Project Spark Going Fully Free, Some Buyers Being Refunded". IGN. Retrieved September 29, 2015.
  8. "Get Young Conker". Microsoft Store. Retrieved 2022-04-19.
  9. Microsoft HoloLens: Young Conker, retrieved 2022-04-19
  10. Ben (June 22, 2011). "Top 5 Rare Characters Who Improved With Age". Rare. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  11. "Top 25 Anti-Heroes". GameDaily. p. 23. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved July 22, 2013.
  12. Goldstein, Hilary (November 18, 2004). "Ten Best Things About Conker: Live and Reloaded". IGN. p. 4. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  13. "Gaming's Most Notorious Anti-Heroes". IGN. March 5, 2012. p. 2. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  14. Kosak, Dave (April 21, 2005). "Conker: Live and Reloaded Hands-On". GameSpy. Retrieved July 26, 2013.
  15. "Conker's Bad Fur Day Was Supposed To Include Pokémon And KKK Jokes". Kotaku Australia. January 18, 2012.
  16. "10 Iconic Video Game Characters & Their MCU Counterparts". ScreenRant. March 13, 2021.
  17. "15 Forgotten Video Game Mascots From the 1990s". www.mentalfloss.com. October 4, 2017.
  18. "A better look at our beloved Conker in Project Spark". April 16, 2015.
  19. "Worst Video Game Character Designs That Were Totally Disliked By Gamers | Page 7".
  20. Plante, Chris (February 29, 2016). "New Conker video game looks nothing like Conker, runs on HoloLens". The Verge.
  21. Loveridge, Sam (April 30, 2016). "8 weirdest game sex scenes of all time". Digital Spy.
  22. Prell, Sam (March 23, 2018). "20 characters we want to see in Super Smash Bros. on Switch". GamesRadar+. Retrieved September 7, 2020.
  23. "Banjo-Kazooie and Conker figures are coming to Totaku - MSPoweruser".
  24. "This Conker's Bad Fur Day Statue is a Must Buy, If You've Got the Cash". January 7, 2019.
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