After years of speculation about the sanity of the programmers at Rare, and the bigwigs at Nintendo, the first big-name M-Rated, adults-only N64 game has arrived. And guess what? Under the layers of raunch, toilet humor and colored language there’s a very good reason that Nintendo green-lit this game – it’s damn good.

You most likely know the history behind this game already, so I’ll give the dhort version. Conke’rs BFD started out as Conker 64, and then Conker’s Twelve Tails, and was planned to be another of Rare’s trademark furry platformers (in the vein of Banjo Kazooie, Donkey Kong 64, and Banjo Tooie. Rare then pulled a 180, revamped the game, changed the title and started adding adult content. A LOT of adult content. This is most likely due to the bad press Rare and the N64 was getting because of the seemingly unending stream of cute 3D platformers.

Conker’s BFD follows the events of a single, really bad day in the life of the still-cute Conker. After a night of heavy drinking with some pals, Conker stumbles out of the bar and into a strangely twisted world, where his adventure begins.

The game plays like you’d imagine. Conker can run, jump and hover-fly for a limited distance. He can also crouch and crawl under certain obstacles. There is no inventory, and the only thing Conker needs to collect are pieces of chocolate (health), squirrel tails (extra lives) and bundles of cash. There are no inventory items, as anything Conker will need for the task at hand is given to him via "B" buttons scattered throughout the land. Stand on one of these, press B and Conker is instantly equipped with whatever tool he needs to get past the obstacle presented to him. This is a refreshing change from the tedious monotony of many past 3D platformers, in which "find the item, use the item to unlock the door/solve the puzzle, repeat" quickly became boring. Conker’s BFD has blessedly few puzzles of this nature, although there is one area which requires some key-hunting.

Similar to other Rare platformers, the world of Conker’s BFD is based around a central hub, which contains access points for most of the games many interesting areas. These areas include a world made entirely of poo, an upbeat hillbilly land complete with talking pitchforks and haystacks, and a creepy Transylvania-like area with graveyards, zombies and vampire bats. Every area contains several tasks for Conker to complete, and a big boss to defeat before moving on to the next stage. The progression through the game is extremely well—done, and you generally never have any question about where to head next.

In case you’re wondering why Conker’s BFD got the "M" rating, here’s a brief list of some of the themes touched upon in the game: suicide (as in, characters advising another character to commit suicide), pretty much every kind of sex, the violent and bloody death of just about every cute character in the game, graphic urination as a weapon, a boss made entirely of crap that pulls chunks of himself off to toss at Conker, and lots of swearing. And by swearing, I mean that only the "F" word gets the censorship treatment and the rest of the big ones are spoken plain as day.

(The Great Mighty Poo... 'nuff said)

However, as I said, underneath it all is a highly playable and enjoyable game. The pacing is past, the voicework and cinemas are brilliant and there are many laugh-out-loud moments throughout. Also, there are loads of movie-spoofs, including: A Clockwork Orange, The Godfather, Star Wars, Aliens, The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, Eyes Wide Shut, and more.

(Conker goes to war in a brilliant recreation of the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan)

(What is the Matrix? For Conker, this final stage is one of the hardest, but coolest, parts of the game. Do the Neo!)

The only drawbacks to Conkers are the length and a few elements that feel unfinished. I got through the game in around ten hours, which really isn’t bad for a platformer, but it’s a bit low for a Rare platformer. Still, since there is none of the artificially-lengthening collection nonsense in this game, I really can’t complain too much about the length. I did get the impression that the money-collection aspect would be more prominent, though. As it is, Conkers needs to have a certain amount of money collected at basically three points in the game, in order to proceed. It would have been nice (and I’m pretty sure that I read this in a preview somewhere), if you were actually able to use the money to buy extra lives or access to hidden areas. Again, this is a very minor complaint that really doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game. Finally, the "big boss" of the game is very disappointing, and his presence is limited entirely to cutscenes. The final battle is inspired, and very cool, but I would have liked to see a bit more involvement from the Panther King and his weasel minions during the game.

If you like 3D platformers, have a good sense of humor and are over 17 years of age, then I highly recommend Conker’s BFD. It’s easily the best game of its type on the N64, and the best 3D platformer I’ve ever played.