Conker the Squirrel
Conker the Squirrel is an anthropomorphic squirrel starring in various video games. He first appeared alongside Diddy Kong of Nintendo's Donkey Kong series in Diddy Kong Racing. The character is stated to be 21 years of age by Nintendo. Conker is voiced by Chris Seavor in all of his appearances.
History
Conker was introduced to the world for the first time at E3 in 1997. His game, Conker's Quest, was presented by Rareware as another 3D platformer aimed at a young audience. Later the same year, this fact was confirmed with Conker's inclusion in Diddy Kong Racing, for the Nintendo 64, thus promoting his future games. In the spring of 1998, long after the initial release date, Conker's Quest 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 considered "another kids game". So the game eventually was released in 2001 as Conker's Bad Fur Day, which had been almost entirely redesigned, 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 with its unique brand of humor.
In 2005, a remake was released for the Xbox known as . 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.
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. In Live and Reloaded, he ditched the gloves 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 the most noticeable change was that he was now wearing green and yellow shorts. In Project Spark, Conker's appearance is based on that of Conker's Bad Fur Day, albeit much more detailed.Character biography
''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 on his adventures prior to participating in races with Diddy and his friends, though he was never seen in the games preceding Diddy Kong Racing. Always kind-hearted and polite, his parents brought him up strictly, teaching him to never touch alcohol, urinate in public or be materialistic. After Diddy Kong Racing, in the story of Conker's Pocket Tales, he had his next adventure retrieving birthday presents from evil acorns. One day, 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 later changed into a tall, curvaceous, buxom chipmunk with a valley girl-like personality and grey fur.''Bad Fur Day''/''Live & Reloaded''
In Bad Fur Day, Conker is sarcastic, greedy and a heavy drinker implying he disobeyed the rules his parents said when he was a child. 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. 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", "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 fateful 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 until he was ultimately reunited with Berri, as well as with a massive quantity of money. He was about to leave with Berri when suddenly she was betrayed and murdered by a mafia boss, Don Weaso, eliminating one of his 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, when one night, 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.
According to an interview with Chris Seavor, there was going to be a sequel, Conker's Other Bad Fur Day, and 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 entire plotline was already created, but due to Microsoft not asking for a Conker Sequel, the game production was shelved.
In Conker's Bad Fur Day, Conker has ten prominent weapons: a pair of MP5-like machine guns, a shotgun, a set of throwing knives, a bazooka, a frying pan, a slingshot, a baseball bat with nails in it, a chainsaw, 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.
In an Xbox commercial, he was shown with Banjo, 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, thus it would cease the production of all the downloadable content, including future Conker episodes.