Conker

"Well, here I am! Conker the King... king of all the land! Who'd a thought that? But how did I come to this?--I hear you say. And who are those strange fellows that surround my throne? That you also say! Well. It's a long story. Come closer and I'll tell you. It all started... yesterday. And what a day that was! It's what I call... a bad fur day!"

- Conker

Conker the Squirrel, otherwise known as Conker, is a and the main protagonist of the Conker series. His first appearance was in the Nintendo 64 racing title, Diddy Kong Racing.

Conker was originally a family-friendly character, and was even slated to have his own Nintendo 64 title, Twelve Tales: Conker 64. However, he eventually became a character for older audiences when it was reworked into Conker's Bad Fur Day, which received a Mature rating from the ESRB.

Conker's name is taken from horse chestnut, known as a "conker" in Britain. It is the typical food for squirrels in that area.

Appearance
Conker has always been portrayed with his trademarked orange-red fur, with tan-yellow patches of fur on his torso and bottom part of his face, and a blue hue in his eyes. He has big eyes and buck teeth. His appearance from Diddy Kong Racing and Conker's Bad Fur Day, while having recognizable differences in clothing and fur, is relatively similar.

Prior to Bad Fur Day, Conker had a shirt that was blue on the front and yellow on the back. He wore white gloves that appeared to blend in with his fur. His sneakers were blue and white. His mouth area was entirely white, as well as the tips of his ears. The tip of his tail was a more beige color. Conker was also larger in the hip area, which gave him a chubby appearance.

By Conker: Live & Reloaded, Conker wore a darker blue jacket, started wearing green pants, and he lost his gloves and chubby look. In Conker's Big Reunion, his Bad Fur Day look was reinstated.

While not related to physical appearance, Conker has cartoon-like facial exaggerations in Bad Fur Day and Live & Reloaded. Examples include when Conker's eyes enlarge out of shock from the Haybot or when Conker grabs himself Cash. Conker's entire face can stretch and widen based on his emotion.

Diddy Kong Racing
Conker's first appearance was in the original Diddy Kong Racing for the Nintendo 64. He is one of the playable characters, and he also helps Diddy, Timber, and the other character stop Wizpig from invading the island. Conker is a middleweight racer, but his vehicles have heavyweight attributes, featuring above average speed, and below average acceleration and turning. His top speed without Bananas, shared with Bumper and Timber, is 56.5 mph. Each character has a "theme instrument" in the title, and Conker's is a flute.

Despite being his first appearance, Diddy Kong Racing did little to establish the character's personality or voice, as his short amount of dialogue offered zero insight as such. Conker did not reappear in Diddy Kong Racing DS, where he was replaced with Dixie Kong. This is because Microsoft owned the rights to the Conker franchise since 2002, after their acquisition of Rareware.

Twelve Tales: Conker 64
Aside from Diddy Kong Racing, Conker's own adventure game for the Nintendo 64 was shown at E3 1997, under the working title Conker's Quest. Its name was changed to Twelve Tales: Conker 64 the following year. Conker's inclusion in Diddy Kong Racing was meant to familiarize players with the character and promote the then-upcoming Twelve Tales. The game was ultimately cancelled and reworked into a title for mature audiences, Conker's Bad Fur Day.

Conker's Pocket Tales


Conker's next appearance was in his own handheld adventure title, Conker's Pocket Tales, which was meant to accompany the release of Twelve Tales.

The story involves Conker's girlfriend Berri throwing a surprise party for him; during the event the Evil Acorn bursts out a cake he hid in and kidnaps her. Conker goes on an adventure to rescue her.

Conker's Bad Fur Day
Conker's Bad Fur Day marks the Conker series' shift toward mature audiences. The game stars Conker, whose personality was drastically changed. He is a young adult with a greedy and alcoholic personality, and compared to Pocket Tales his relationship with Berri has problems.

The opening shows Conker sitting on the throne, as the king of the Panther Kingdom. He tells the player of when he became king the preceding day, which he titles a "bad fur day".

Conker's story starts with him entering The Cock and Plucker pub one night, getting drunk. He feels unwell and decides to go home, but he accidentally walks the wrong direction into the Panther Kingdom. Meanwhile, the Panther King cannot place a glass of milk on his table because of a missing leg. He requests his assistant, Professor Von Kriplespac, to find a solution. Kriplespac eventually concludes that a red squirrel will make the perfect leg. Conker has to make his way through the kingdom, including a war against the Tediz to find his way home. On his journey, Conker assists various characters with a task.

In the final chapter Heist, Don Weaso orders Conker and Berri to break into the Federal Reserve Bank, which is later revealed to be a devised trap from the Panther King. After the Panther King orders Don Weaso to shoot Berri, Kriplespac appears and reveals his vengeful action of planting Xenomorph egg inside the Panther King. The Xenomorph, named Heinrich, hatches and bursts out the Panther King's stomach, killing him. After an air lock activates and sucks most of the characters into deep space, Conker is left alone in the final boss fight against Henrich.

During the battle, the game locks, and Conker uses the opportunity to request the Programmer to help him kill Heinrich. He asks to go into the Panther King's Castle for a selection of weapons. Conker decides on a Katana, which he uses to slice Heinrich's head off. Some time after Heinrich's death, a lot of Panther Kingdom residents crown Conker as the new king. Conker is unsatisfied because the Programmer left, and he forgot to request him to revive Berri.

Conker is playable in the Multi mode of Conker's Bad Fur Day if the player enters the code WELLYTOP, or EASTEREGGSRUS to be in his Heist outfit, known as Neo Conker.

Rare Xbox trailer
Conker was featured in the 2004 trailer featuring Rare and Xbox. His appearance resembled his one from Live & Reloaded was similar to his appearance in Conker: Live & Reloaded. Conker's main role in the trailer was when he chainsawed the Xbox logo to spell "Rare".

Conker: Live & Reloaded
Conker reappears a in Conker: Live & Reloaded, once again as the starring character.

While the single player mode of Conker: Live & Reloaded is a carbon copy of Conker's Bad Fur Day, with the multiplayer mode is its own little game. The plot of the multiplayer mode can somewhat be considered a sequel (as well as a prequel) to Conker's Bad Fur Day. The multiplayer involves Professor Von Kriplespac having survived being sucked into outer space and returning to Earth, creating a new species of Tediz known as the Machine Tediz. These new Tediz wreak havoc on the Panther Kingdom having King Conker send his troops out to go fight against them. It is unknown if this is an official sequel to Conker's Bad Fur Day or not. Conker Live & Reloaded also has updated graphics and the profanity is toned down.

Conker's Big Reunion
After 10 years without a new game, Conker appears in the digital add-on, Conker's Big Reunion for Project Spark. He wakes up in the same way he did in his Bad Fur Day, except this time, he is naked.

Personality
As a young boy, Conker was told by his parents never to drink alcohol, be materialistic or "urinate in a public place". In Diddy Kong Racing and Conker's Pocket Tales, Conker seemed to listen to his parents, as he was a stereotypically friendly, innocent, happy-go-lucky character. In Conker's Bad Fur Day however, Conker went through a dramatic change in personality. He had become a materialistic, alcoholic squirrel.

Conker obviously disobeyed his parents, who were described as "a bit disappointed". Conker is ignorant, ditzy and carefree, just like most of the other squirrels; one example is when he still did not notice he was going the wrong way from his home in the Hungover chapter.

Even in Bad Fur Day, Conker has a good-natured side. Even though he has adult traits of alcoholism and greed, Conker almost never uses profanity. The only swears he has uttered were "fellatio" (which he mistook as the password to Rock Solid), "bitch" and "ass", although the latter two were used in quotes taken from a movie verbatim. Conker is also shown to have a helpful personality—he helps almost every character, regardless of the task's difficulty or what the character wants.

Other names
In Conker's Bad Fur Day, Conker was given various nicknames by other characters, usually insults.

Trivia

 * Conker's full name is Conker the Squirrel, as he states to Gregg the Grim Reaper. This means that his real middle name is "The" and his last name is "Squirrel", as stated by many characters.
 * Professor Von Kriplespac states that a Red Squirrel's scientific name is Furrius squidgeterrius, however, in the real world it is Sciurus vulgaris. Humorously, the species name, vulgaris, contains the word, vulgar, which can easily describe Conker's personality.
 * The ending of Conker's Bad Fur Day was originally supposed to have Conker committing suicide by shooting himself in the head.
 * Conker also makes a cameo in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts in a newspaper.
 * Conker can hover for a short time by making his tail spin like a propeller, which could be a reference to Miles "Tails" Prower, of Sonic the Hedgehog fame, who is known for performing the same action.
 * Conker can sometimes be seen with playing with a yo-yo in one of his idle animations. This could be a possible reference to Crash Bandicoot, who would often play with a yo-yo when left idle in three of his first four games.