Conker the Squirrel

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Conker the Squirrel, seen in Bad Fur Day.

Conker the Squirrel is a fictional, anthropomorphic squirrel starring in various video games. He was created by Rareware, which was sold to Microsoft in 2002 and then renamed to Rare in 2003. He is 21 years old, cute, lovable, and has an affinity, or addiction, for alcohol.

Origins and Games

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 Conker's Twelve Tales. In 1999, Conker made his first solo debut in Conker's Pocket Tales for Game Boy Color.

As a result of his first game appearance, these games are an incidental spinoff of the Donkey Kong series, and therefore part of the much larger Mario universe. He lives in an area called Willow Woods, presumably near Donkey Kong Island.

Conker seemed poised to become another one of those cute yet forgettable platform heroes geared towards a younger audience. After being passed off as such, Rareware decided to redesign the game entirely from scratch, and turned it into Conker's Bad Fur Day. This version of the game was completely different in the fact that instead of being a generally E-rated game, it was instead turned into a game aimed towards adults, with its sexual content, foul language, drug and alcohol usage, and excessive violence. This game faced many delays, until it was finally released in 2001 in Europe and the United States, when the Nintendo 64 was drawing its final breath. The game suffered rather poor sales, but over time it received a cult following with its unique brand of humor and surprisingly deep themes. 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.

Look

When Conker was introduced in Diddy Kong Racing, He had no gloves (in art only), blue vest, blue and yellow Converse All Stars shoes, and flat-looking tail. This appearance is the same for Pocket Tails. In Bad Fur Day, Conker had gloves, blue zipper hoodie, and same shoes, but had the Converse logo removed. In Live and Reloaded, however, He ditched the gloves, replaced with real squirrel hands (a DKR and CPT update), and had a marine look.

Conker's Life

Little is known of Conker's origins or his early life. We know that he had met 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 or be materialistic. Although he broke these rules later in life, he still always retains a sweet persona to even the roughest of characters he meets.

After "Diddy Kong Racing" (but probably not much later), 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 short, cute little squirrel like Conker, but was later transformed into a tall, curvescous, buxom character with a valley girl-like personality. 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, thus arriving at a completely foreign world, the Fairy Panther Kingdom, which he believed only existed in fairy tales, when he awoke. A series of very bizarre and unfortunate events ensued, until he ultimately found himself reunited with Berri, as well as with a horde of money. These pleasant times were soon brought to a halt when Berri was betrayed and murdered by a mafia boss, Don Weaso, shattering one of his few true loves in the world.

At the defeat of the evil Panther King, 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 realize that he did not want any of it, and that his only true reason of living was killed before his eyes.

Conker's Future

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 lead him to the horrible chain of events. This implies that he ends up going to yet another unusual world, although this has never been further explained.

It has been confirmed that the original ending involved Conker committing suicide, by pointing a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. But that was scrapped for being too gruesome and to leave the opportunity for a sequel open.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Massive fan support has been heard towards bringing Berri back^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}, if only to answer the decidedly unhappy ending to Bad Fur Day.

However, when Chris Seavor (the voice of Conker on the N64 version of Bad Fur Day) was asked about a new Conker game, he said that would be focused on the war between the S.H.C. and the Tediz, and Conker would be killed in the first scene.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} His future remains uncertain.

Trivia

Although Conker Drinks, commits lewd Conduct, and is very greedy, he hardly ever swears. Notably the only truly real swears he's uttered were "fellatio" (albeit out of context) "bitch" and "ass". He has also said "see that fucker explode" in a trailer for Conker Live & Reloaded, but the line itself does not appear in the game.

His Birthday is November 24th.

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