Topic: Pure Xbox Game Club - Halo 2 (Nov)

On the final boss, but I’ve been struggling for a few minutes. It’s so hard to throw the boss into the open airlock when you spin him so fast! I’ll give my full thoughts on the game when I finish him off.

Ok, I finally completed my second playthrough! Feels so satisfying after getting through all those annoying and frustrating moments.

On replay, it was still pretty fun and charming. The writing was so crass but stupid and funny, the characters still kept that Rareware charm with how they look and act, and it was still full of so much silly moments. The movie parodies and homages were still so freaking cool, even though I could only recognize a few of them. What makes the parodies better is that they are used in relation to the themes of the levels they are used in, and are sometimes used to progress the game’s bizarre storyline. I also loved the fourth-wall breaking moments they put in there too. The game absolutely succeeds in being so memorable, which is probably why the game sticks in my head so much even after I completed it back last year in September. The Great Mighty Poo, the Its War chapter, and the cool as heck parody they did of The Matrix were probably the most memorable for me!

I absolutely love the bright Technicolor environments and cute Disney-esque character designs that juxtapose the adult material and content of the game, which just adds onto the subversive nature of the game. The characters are so expressive and well-animated, especially Conker himself, which just adds onto how much I love the game’s cartoony art style. Another aspect I have to praise is the voice acting. It’s so impressive and the coolest part is how only three people did all of the character voices, and when you play it, it really does shock you with how much range the voice cast had when voicing such a huge cast of characters. It’s probably the most technically impressive N64 game ever.

The soundtrack is also pretty great too! Robin Beanland did such a great job with the soundtrack, and the fact he was able to do so many different song genres and achieved different moods with just the sounds alone is so cool. My favorites was the hub world song and the song that plays in the prehistoric nightclub.

However, I’m now starting to realize how hit or miss the gameplay is; sometimes it was super fun and good, but it can also get terribly frustrating and make you annoyed. It was pretty fine for me when I first played it and I didn’t think of it much, but now some of the bad gameplay decisions stick out to me more, since it had been almost a year since I played the entire thing. It sort of feels like the characters, the writing and the crass humor came first, and the gameplay was an afterthought after they focused a ton on making the humor and writing funny. The tasks and objectives shifting depending on the level and situation (which I think was called context sensitive) was for sure unique and leads to a ton of wild and absurd moments, and I appreciate the more simplified gameplay it has. However, the worst aspect of the gameplay was probably the gunplay and segments where you use projectiles. The quality on that aspect varied. Sometimes it was good and passable, and times it was super off and hard to aim, mostly thanks to there not being aiming reticles during parts where you use slingshots. But even with the aiming reticles put in a few parts that use guns, like in some of the segments with turrets, the aiming was still so off, so I had to shoot aimlessly to get through hordes of enemies. The one part where the shooting was better was in the Its War chapter, but that comes way late into the game, so you only get onto the good gunplay when the game is nearly finished with its story…

Some of the level design can be a bit bad too. Most of the time, it was fine and I didn’t mind it, but there’s maybe two or three levels where I think the design was poor or the difficulty doesn’t help with the controls. The poorest is maybe Uga Buga. The entrance is difficult to get through, and once you get through it, you might be relieved but throughout the level you get a ton of objectives that come off as super random and are either too slow or frustrating. The worst part was this poorly done racing minigame that gets thrown onto you for some reason, and on that one, you need to go super fast while also avoiding colliding into walls and avoiding these dinosaurs that have really awful hitboxes. It wasn’t really as bad as I remember when I played it yesterday, but the conditions on that one are still frustrating and I died so many times completing it. Worst part is you can’t finish the game unless you survive the race and it can’t be skipped. The chapter Spooky suffers from being too big and full of repetition, as in a later part of the level, you need to go all around the place
finding and grabbing three keys one by one and going back and forth to the haunted mansion’s door until it opens. The Its War chapter is super hard to complete, mostly from the buttload of lasers they put around the area, and you have to be super careful and precise with your movements. The slow controls with the shooting doesn’t help, since the level is all about being fast and alert when danger shows up and immediately dealing with it.

Although a minor gripe, the camera is a bit unrefined. It wasn’t super awful, but at times it’s crud and refuses to move or turn at points. It got stuck the most during this one-hit blade section and I nearly died multiple times from the camera being so off, and the camera does not work the best in the level Bats Tower during this balancing act you do while avoiding getting attacked by bats, so you have to rely on audio cues instead of visuals to find the right time to attack and dodge the bats. I also had a bit of trouble collecting the cash on top of the tower because of the camera being unmovable, but the trick to not falling off of the tower at that part is walking and jumping in a straight line. I can also recall the camera getting stuck a bit during the final boss fight whenever the boss jumps over you, but it fixes itself when you turn to face the boss after he jumps.

I still love the original and think it’s great with its characters and writing, but it mostly stinks with the gameplay. The remake does the gameplay better and has a fixed camera, but the main issue with that is it being more censored, and I’ll admit that I’m not a fan of the new semi-realistic art style they went with for that one and I don’t like how a lot of the cartoon elements are de-emphasized and removed since it makes the remake a bit less charming. I think that Rare’s other platformers, like Banjo-Kazooie, do both the characters and gameplay well, but Conker unfortunately only does the former well and fumbles way more with the latter. However, I am glad I didn’t let the frustrating moments in the gameplay stop me from replaying it! The game club most certainly gave me the motivation to play Conker again, and I’m so happy I didn’t give up.

@Pastellioli well-done mate and thanks for the deep insight!

That reminds me I should post my thoughts while they’re in my head. IRL stuff makes me forget to post here at times but I do have a lot I wanna say since I feel I found some pretty interesting things to share.
Peace.

@Balta666 Your welcome! One of my favorite things to do is write some deep dives of games I play. It was so worth it to replay it again.

Sad to see no one else has been discussing the game

@Pastellioli ahh summer is always quiet on this thread. Too much Vitamin D from the sun to be absorbed! Don't be too disheartened!

I actually really want to play Conker (original and remake!) but I am just completely snowed under with work because I'm retraining in a new field and starting my own business 😬. But it has been a hell of a lot of fun!

@Pastellioli I agree with all your points, as discussed on the other thread. I find the Xbox remake slightly disappointing in terms of performance, compared to the Rare Replay version, but the graphics and sound are massively improved. The gameplay is also better, except some annoying sections that are the same. I'd still recommend others to play the Xbox remake. It's a game that every gamer should play at least once. I'm not fan of gore, but this time I perceived it as ridiculous and another part of the joke, so it really didn't bother me. It's fascinating how different Rare's N64 platformers are: Banjo, Donkey Kong and Conker.

@Banjo- I can remember the remake having some technical issues, I think sometimes the game slowed down and there was weird blurring during some cutscenes, so it is unfortunately worse than the Rare Replay port of Bad Fur Day. But, some of the annoying parts are better to play in the remake thanks to having better controls, a better camera, and there being attempts to remove some of the repetitive sections. The graphics of that one are so stunning for an OG Xbox game, and it’s maybe the best looking one I have seen so far. I love how the hub world looks in the new graphics. It just looks so beautiful and colorful in higher-quality.

I can remember you telling me months ago you weren’t a fan of the violence in the game. I also am not a huge fan of gore and blood too, but it’s usage in the game makes sense, since it’s trying to subvert expectations and be for adults, like how some of the slapstick and more cartoony violence has blood instead of there simply being none, and the entire point of the original Conker game was that it was supposed to still look like a kids game at first glance but is actually an “adult” game in disguise, which surprises the people who go into the game thinking it’s supposed to be cutesy and kiddy. It’s so smart. I also think I was able to handle the violence already either because of some media I have seen already or because some of the violence is super overexaggerated and unrealistic.

I was actually contemplating wait till the end of the month to give my thoughts in order to give myself the maximum amount of time tu let my thoughts marinate and be as fair as possible. I take game critique a bit too seriously, force of habit xp

@Pastellioli The original game is the most advanced Nintendo 64 game, with realistic shadows and bigger landscapes than any other. The Xbox remake is the the best-looking Xbox game, too. The violence is part of the joke, the adult and subversive game that looks like a kiddie platformer, from the beginning with the mouse that loves cheese so much until the end when Berri's death is a full-blown parody of the cinematic deaths that somehow the characters are able to endure and survive for minutes. The writing of the game is so smart and something I've only seen in other Rare's games like Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong Country.

@Yousef- Usually when I finish a game, I like to immediately let people on here know my thoughts on it, and also cuz I love writing long paragraph essays lol. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it hopefully by the end of the month! Too bad everyone else here is busy right now.

@Banjo- Sorry for replying two days late! Yeah, I do think that you understand the violent material and raunchy nature of the game more if you see it as a sort of parody and subversion of platformer games, plus it’s supposed to be ridiculous and making fun of tropes common in video games as well. I love the writing so much, and I would absolutely love a modern entry that makes fun of modern video game tropes and cliches and practices like micro transactions. The fact that no one has made a game like that yet disappoints me.

That’s how I usually go on about it too, but I thought I’d try to be more fair towards the game since it’s a game club game by waiting a bit to see what stands out in hindsight and oddly enough, very little changed in regards to my thoughts at the beginning of the month compared to now. I actually did try to sit down and write down my thoughts but I’d typically be either really tired from work or have my attention all fixated on the push square game club since I’m running that too and keeping track of all votes. I’m sure I’ll still make time to write down my thoughts, just need to find the right way to phrase and convey my feelings.

Hey everyone, I held off my thoughts but now it’s time to post them. Sorry guys, I didn’t really like this one. It’s one of Rare’s weaker platformers in my opinion. The context sensitivity system wasn’t really my thing and the crassy humor lost its novelty after a while.

For extra authenticity, I played the Xbox remake using the Duke. Although one major gripe I have is that I couldn’t make the camera inverted like on N64, which is my preference, even in some modern games.

@Yousef- fair enough. Games are not to everyone tastes (and maybe that is the beauty of it hehe)

Hello everyone!

I would say is about time to get the votes in for next month. At the moment we have single votes on Gears of War 2 and Mafia definitive edition.

You will find suggested list of votes in the link in my bio.

Cheers.

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@Balta666 I’ll probably just vote for Halo 2, if I do get Game Pass Ultimate again. I don’t really have any games I want to play after Conker, so I’ll just stick to a shooter game. And a question, is that game apart of the Master Chief Collection?

Also, I might have a game recommendation for that list, but I need to know what games were on the list prior so I know I’m not recommending a game everyone has played already.

@Pastellioli yes, halo 2 is on there. Feel free to add any game you like (list of past played games are in the first post).

@Balta666 That was a very helpful list! I might request Perfect Dark Zero and Banjo-Tooie for the list. Thank you for the vote by the way!

Mafia for me!