hype!!!

*puts helmet on*

I'll be ready for your feature, Salnax!

5 and a half hours to go!

Anyone else interested?

Today in Nintendo History:

Conker the Squirrel got his proper video game debut! (1999)

Loads of people know and love Conker the Squirrel. Conker's Bad Fur Day was one of the last big games from Rare before they started going downhill/were bought by Microsoft, and its raunchy humor and references made it stand out from the pack. What many people don't remember is that 2001's Bad Fur Day was NOT, in fact, Conker's first video game. Conker for the N64 had been in the works since at loeast 1997, when it was shown off at E3 as Conker's Quest. Latter that year, Conker made a cameo in Diddy Kong Racing, but his real debut was neither that racing game or the Bad Fur Day we know and love. Conker started his adventures in Conker's Pocket Tales, a little known Game Boy Color title released fifteen years ago.

It looks like a normal enough piece of box art except... wait. What's that in the bottom-left corner?

...is this supposed to be a joke? Let's see what the opening of the game is like...

At this point, I bet some of you are a bit confused. Isn't Conker known for being kind of like, you know...

Well, it turns out that Conker has a history. And not just with alcohol.

Originally, Conker for the N64, then known as Conker's Quest, was going to be a light-hearted cartoon game with a talking squirrel protagonist. You know, the exact game Bad Fur Day was pretending to be on the surface. By mid-1998 or so, Rare had begun questioning the original direction that they were going with the project, since they already had a cute cartoon platforming mascot in the form of Banjo and Kazooie. Thus, Conker for tghe N64 disappeared for two years, and later reappeared in 2000 as the insane, disgusting game we know today.

But in the meantime, we got a Game Boy spinoff. Which started development under the premise that Conker was a cute squirrel. Thus, we have one of the most surprisingly normal games of all time.

So, was it any good?

Kind of.

Pocket Tales was sort of a 8-bit version of the 3D collectathon platformer that Rare was fond of back in the N64 era. Your goal was to collect a bunch of presents, preferably blue ones. You were encouraged to hoarde the life-giving acorns and ammunition for your slingshot at every oppurtunity. After fighting a boss and completing a minigame or two, you moved on to a new area where you do it again. Repeat six times, and you have a small world of things to collect.

At a glance, the game will remind many of a 2D Zelda. Though the comparison is not entirely fallacious, this was a much more "platformy" game. Conker could walk, run, jump, stomp, sprint, burrow, push blocks, swim, dive underwater, etc. Furthermore, most of these abilities are never locked; burrowing out of your property is simply how you start the game for example.

The presentation is about as good as it got on the Game Boy Color. Graphics were usually pretty bright and colorful, enemies and objects distinct and clear, and the animation for Conker was also pretty nice. The music was done by Rare veterans Eveline Fischer and Robin Beanland, who did the music for the Donkey Kong Country trilogy and Killer Instinct games. Beanland, incidentally, went on to win a BAFTA for his music in Bad Fur Day.

But is the game good? Well, at the time it came out, reviews weren't that great. IGN gave the game a 6 out of 10, and that was by no means the lowest score the game got.

However, there was one young gamer circa 2000 and 2001 who was inspired by this game. Salnax.

Salnax didn't know much about Rare. He was a Game Boy owner who played some PC games on the side, and was too young to play gems like Goldeneye 007 when they came out. He never owned a console until late 2001 or so, when his kindly grandparents got him an N64 that I think was being sold at a low price to make room for more PS2's.

However, Conker's Pocket Tales was a revelation for Salnax. Imagine the first time you played Super Mario 64, and explored the castle and its grounds. His equivalent was exploring the open world and many secrets of Conker.

Now imagine Salnax's reaction when he heard about how his beloved childhood icon was replaced be a shit-talking hooligan less than two years later

And that's why Salnax has no desire to ever play any of Conker's better known games.

Also, today I ran Google Images on "Salnax," and I found the following pictures:

Note to Self: This Salnax fellow is lucky he played the cutesy Conker first.

You know, I never knew that you were so "in" to Conker Salnax...

HAHAHAHHAHAA

Not sure if this has been mentioned but Mario Kart 8 is currently sitting at #14 on the Amazon best selling video games of 2014. This puts it above infamous, with only three games ahead of it being GTA V (360) at #12, Titanfall (xOne) at #9, and Thief gold (pc) at #3.

14.

Mario Kart 8 - Nintendo Wii U

by Nintendo

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png) -30px -20px no-repeat;">4.6 out of 5 stars  http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png) -30px -40px no-repeat;">  (225)

Nintendo Wii U

$59.99

27 used & new from $49.00

15.

Grand Theft Auto V - Playstation 3

by Rockstar Games

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png) -30px -20px no-repeat;">4.6 out of 5 stars  http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png) -30px -40px no-repeat;">  (1,835)

PlayStation 3

$47.99

261 used & new from $31.98

16.

inFAMOUS: Second Son Limited Edition...

by Sony Computer Entertainment

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/common/sprites/sprite-site-wide-3._V375430972_.png) -30px -20px no-repeat;">4.4 out of 5 stars   (455)

PlayStation 4

$51.98

78 used & new from $37.99

Looking at the amazon best sellers, I noticed Wonderful 101 is currently number 7 in videogames and excluding PSN and Xbox cards, 3. There isn't any price drop either. MK8 is still 4. First Wii U bundle is 72 that I saw.

Mah boi, this be the peace that comes moments before the storm. Whether it be a storm of memes, a storm of announcements, or a dreaded shitstorm, I know not. But as surely as Winter comes, so does the storm.