It was a dark and stormy night. Conker T. Squirrel opened his eyes for the first time and sat up on the drawing board. He belched, and the designers cheered with pride. A star was born. It was 1997.
Later that same year, Mr. Squirrel made his game debut in Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo® N64. In those early days, his pre-adolescent innocence was still intact. His body hadn’t filled out, and he had yet to discover girls. He had the beginnings of a promising career.
Our hero as a young squirrel …
The people who predict things predicted he would be a leader among racers, that he would take his racing career all the way to the top, and that he would one day challenge Mario himself. But they were wrong. A life on the racetrack wasn’t in the cards for our hero.
Instead, Conker headed to the Nintendo Game Boy and became, as one fan put it, “cheerful and happy.” For many who know the adult Conker, this must be difficult to believe, but back then, Conker’s world was much rosier.
… and now all grown up.
Go, Conker! It’s Your Birthday! In Conker’s Pocket Tales for the Game Boy, we see the seed of the great warrior we have come to know and love. Conker had not yet blasted into puberty (though he would soon enough … like an enhanced GBU-27 smart bomb, no less) and was celebrating his birthday in an altogether wholesome manner. In the opening scene, his darling girlfriend, Berri, appears for the first time.
Unfortunately, the Evil Acorn kidnaps Conker’s sweetie, along with his birthday presents. Conker spends the next few cycles getting it all back. We see him exhibit his burgeoning leadership qualities when he rescues the good acorns and guides them to safety.
This adventure is, if I may say so, Conker’s rite of passage into adulthood. This is the true beginning of his hero’s quest, where he comes out of childhood only to discover that the world sucks, evil acorns suck, and the only things he can really count on are his friends and, of course, his girl.
The Middle Years Having discovered the many joys of being a grown-up, Mr. Squirrel spent the next couple years resting on the laurels of his previous work. He dropped out of public view—perhaps to sow his wild oats, perhaps to recuperate—and almost became a nobody … until Rare re-enlisted him as the lead inConker’s Bad Fur Day.
In those days, Conker was still a two-dimensional young squirrel, but he had developed the personality of a macho tiger with a sailor’s vocabulary, drinking habits, and table manners. He was a natural for the job. Conker’s Bad Fur Day debuted on the Nintendo® N64 in 2001.
No sooner had Conker’s Bad Fur Day been released, than the people at Rare turned their backs on our favorite squirrel and began to work on other projects. They dared! While they philandered, Conker was out there sweating for them, wooing complete strangers to the game, and running his tail off for the entertainment of his fans. You’ll be happy to know that all his hard work paid off.
New adventures await Conker T. Squirrel.
On to Bigger and Better Things The spotlight has once again swung around to shine in Conker T. Squirrel’s big blue eyes. In 2002, he got a call from Rare. According to one source, the developers begged him to come back. They promised him his heart’s desires: women, booze, and big guns.
No squirrel worth his metal could pass up an offer like that. And, thus, Conker is returning to the small screen in Conker™: Live and Reloaded.
Conker played it smart this time. He trained for the role, buffed up, and sat through many painful spa treatments. In addition, he made Rare put it in his contract that they’d make him look better than ever before.
He was recently quoted as saying that “the whole fundamental look and sound of the thing has been redone from scratch. It's all I deserve, tell me about it, but you've still got to give the development monkeys credit …” It’s nice to see a superstar being so humble.
So, Conker is finally arriving on Xbox® and Xbox Live®, and his future couldn’t look brighter. Of course, the question on everyone’s mind is, “What will that rascally squirrel do next?” Unfortunately, only his hairdresser knows …
