Conker's Bad Fur Day - Reception

Reception

Conker's Bad Fur Day was given very positive reviews from game critics. On the review aggregator GameRankings, the game has an average score of 89%, making it the 15th best reviewed N64 game. On Metacritic, the game has an average score of 92 out of 100, which is considered "universal acclaim". It won the 2001 BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Award for sound, and was awarded Game of the Month for March 2001 by IGN.

Many publications and websites declared the graphics were the best on the Nintendo 64. Critics noted that the title featured a number of technical effects that were uncommon at the time, especially for an N64 game, such as dynamic shadowing, colored lighting, large areas with a long draw distance, no distance fog, detailed facial animations, lip syncing, and individually rendered fingers on some characters. Shane Satterfield of GameSpot went so far to say that the game "makes other Nintendo 64 games look like 16-bit software." IGN's Matt Casamassina praised the detailed 3D worlds, "fantastic" texture work, and cute character designs. He remarked that "Conker himself is equipped with an in-game facial animation system that realistically portrays his different moods as he travels the lands. When he's scared, he looks it, and when he's pissed off players will actually be able to see his teeth showing in a frown." Reviewers noted occasional drops in the frame rate, but most agreed it did not interfere with gameplay.

Critics also gave high marks for the game's audio and diverse vocal track, which easily outnumbered that of other voiced N64 games such as Perfect Dark or Turok 2: Seeds of Evil. The voice acting was praised highly for its different accents and styles, with "cleverly lewd" scripts and "dead-on" movie spoofs. Similar to Rare's earlier Banjo-Kazooie, the soundtrack was credited for its different arrangements of specific songs that gradually change as players move from one area to the next, and for its rich and creative instrumentation. Reviewers also highlighted the amount of sound effects. Satterfield observed that "there are literally dozens of sounds just for Conker's footsteps".

Gameplay received mixed reviews for its variety and interesting context-sensitive systems. Matt Casamassina credited Rare for reducing the amount of things to collect and simplifying the moves with the context-sensitive pads, as they "help keep the action shifting, refreshing, and always exciting." By contrast, Game Revolution's Johnny Liu criticized its simplistic action, short length and linear nature. GameSpot pointed out that the game's linearity "cuts its length considerably". A criticism mentioned in numerous reviews was the "defective" camera, which "sometimes gets caught on objects or refuses to obey commands". The multiplayer was identified as "inventive", and was praised for its numerous options. Shane Satterfield, however, remarked, "While the extra modes do add some longevity to Conker's BFD, the majority of them fail to stand the test of time."

Most reviewers agreed the jokes were clever and funny. According to Casamassina, "Is it over the top? Yes. Is it lowbrow? Yes. And yet, it's also very well delivered and smart too -- and it's funny. Really, honestly, funny". Johnny Liu concluded his review by saying that the game "has its crosshairs directly aimed at the college audience", and that it "works perfectly for the peeps who've grown up with Mario and are now looking for someone less dorky". In 2009, the Official Nintendo Magazine placed Conker's Bad Fur Day at #97 in their 100 Greatest Nintendo Games Ever list, and GameTrailers rated it as the #1 funniest game ever on their "Top Ten Funniest Games". In 2010, UGO included the game as the #3 in the article "The 11 Weirdest Game Endings". Overall, although the game fared well with critics in both the UK and US, it sold worse than expected (only about 55,000 copies), partly due to its prohibitively high cost, advertisements exclusively to the older audience, and release in early 2001. Despite these factors, the game has enjoyed a cult following.