Hello everyone, I'm Jack Red originally I was going to do a full on Perfect Dark comparison. Comparing both Perfect Dark games included in Rare Replay. But that quickly would've got boring as well as one sided. So I decided to go in a rather unexpected direction. I know a lot of people won't take this seriously which is okay.
I want to talk about my top 5 reasons why I think Conker's Bad Fur Day is better than Perfect Dark Zero. Yes, I'm comparing another Rare classic from Rare Replay to Perfect Dark Zero instead. Despite how incredibly different they are, there's a couple similarities as well. Oh yeah this is actually going to be fun to make lol.
This particular top 5 list is in not actual order. But I will be very honest how I felt about this comparison.
5. The story
Perfect Dark Zero's story was about Joanna being a bounty hunter that became an important member in Carrington Institute. At one point, she loses her father during a mission. The entire direction of the story was slower pace that didn't give us enough suspense or surprises. In fact, most of the supposedly surprising moments are very obvious.
Now let's compare to Conker's Bad Fur Day. Yes I know this game is filled with movie parodies. At the same time, they chose to do it in a rather unexpected way that was refreshing. Let's be honest, there's a lot of funny moments in this game. Even the intro itself was way better in comparison. The ending is actually my favorite among Rare's video games truthfully.
4. The characters
Perfect Dark Zero didn't get the classic characters right. Joanna came off like a totally different character. Carrington himself for some odd reason was made to appear as a Scottish man. Most newer characters doesn't stand out well. Especially the villains came off boring, predictable and most importantly lazy. Even the usual enemies aren't even rememberable either.
WOW where to begin about Conker's Bad Fur Day characters. Everyone stands out in a huge way. You get some truly mess up moments in this game including a particular moment with a sun flower. There's a lot of cursing in this game too. The enemies you deal with are an interesting variety. Even the bosses are more interesting to talk about in comparison, I love Gregg the Grim Reaper lol.
3. The multiplayer
Both games has a couple of modes. You also can play with or against other people. The same also applies to bots. Even the basic stuff they both share like Death Match. There's no comparison which is better. Conker's Bad Fur Day has a more interesting selection of weapons. Although, you need to input codes there's more characters you can play as.
Which brings me to another point, unless you know how you have the game randomly selecting your character in PDZ. Not a problem in Conker's Bad Fur Day. Now, the other multiplayer modes does alter who you can play as to better fit the theme. This was such a cool idea to spice things up. There's a mode you either play as a caveman or an dinosaur.
There's another mode called Heist based on Heist Chapter where you have to play as one of the weasel characters. You steal money from another player or bot. You also get Race based on a particular part from Uga Buga Chapter. I could describe the rest of the modes. The newer ones in Perfect Dark Zero while interesting in concept just isn't well executed.
I should mention depending on which mode determines your weapons. Although in the case of Race, there's codes to replace your weapon with either a Frying Pan or an Baseball Bat. Also, it's much easier to use the weapons in Conker's Bad Fur Day. One particular map, you actually can pee on the other players or bots.
Yes even something that disgusting is better than the best weapons in Perfect Dark Zero. You also need to consider you hold more weapons by default in PDZ. However, some weapons does have a different inventory size. Some of which will actually take it all up. Parts of this is better than Conker since you mostly have to stick with one weapon.
Although, the Uzis are automatically dual wielded. Stuff like the chainsaw are instant death if it hits. You actually can jump unlike in PDZ, you have to go around or at times drop down somewhere. Both games do use radars roughly about the same. You can add in a ridiculous amount of bots for Death Match.
There's much more variety within Conker's Bad Fur Day. There's even a mode where all players or bots fight with tanks. Which isn't even an option in Perfect Dark Zero. Not only that, every multiplayer mode has an intro as well as ending. Very nice touch in comparison to suddenly the final scores shows up screen in PDZ.
Oh wait, I'm not done yet. There's a code that adds a special effect almost every time someone gets their head off by a katana. I do need to say most achievements for both games so happens to be multiplayer theme. You can get all of Conker's within a few hours. But for Perfect Dark Zero, you need to put in hundreds of hours to get them all why bother doing that?
2. The bosses
Of course, you knew if I was going to do an comparison I had to talk about the bosses. There's six bosses in PDZ while there's seven bosses. Now it isn't automatically better for having more bosses. But there's more notable changes within Conker's Bad Fur Day's boss fights that gives it the edge. Like The Great Mighty Poo, you have to use giant rolls of toilet paper or face The Experiment while in a tank.
Even if I just compared the final bosses. This is very one sided argument. Zhang Li is too predictable & easy to kill. You may run out of ammo a lot but he will keep using corpses that had guns. Therefore, he's indirectly giving you ammo. Heinrich whose a parody of an Xenomorph from Alien series is much tougher.
His actual boss fight is a parody of Bowser's boss fights in Super Mario 64. Which doing the actual spinning mechanic can hurt or at times harm your hands. Also, he does have a better AI in comparison as well. I do need to mention Count Batula's boss fight plays very differently to the point you aren't actually fighting him.
You are transformed into a vampire bat. You put poop on the villagers then drop em into the grinder. Too much blood added will cause Count Batula to fall down to his death. Honestly, even the best of PDZ's boss fights is worst than the worst of Conker's Bad Fur Day's bosses. Both games does have a boss in a vehicle.
Conker's Bad Fur Day's The Experiment fights you in several phases. Thus, the overall boss fight is more interesting in comparison. Keep in mind, there's more bosses I could bring up here. But the more I do, the more obvious that Conker's Bad Fur Day put more effort in. We got some truly creative boss fights for it's time.
1. The single player campaign
I will try to say stuff I touch a little on but more of what I haven't said yet. The actual script for Perfect Dark Zero isn't great with even worse voice acting. But Conker has a smaller cast of people doing the voices. Mostly two people doing most of the character's voices is impressive. The story for Conker is mixed of several parodies that somehow comes together.
You may seen the movies they're parodying but there's no way you could've seen any of this coming during a first play through. It is a risker concept that was beautifully done. Perfect Dark Zero is broken up into thirteen missions with mission 0 being a virtual simulation mission. Conker's Bad Fur Day broken up into nine chapters.
Now Perfect Dark Zero you can replay missions. You just can't go directly to checkpoints. Most missions only has one check point. I played a lot of similar games that had more check points. At times, it's easy to die in both these games. Conker can be more strict about falling. There isn't many death animations in PDZ though.
Surprisingly, Conker got a lot of great animations not just the death ones. Also, each chapter in Conker brings something different to the table. Like It's War chapter, you use two Uzis or just one in Xbox remake to fight the Tediz or rolling balls of poo in Sloprano chapter up a mountain. There isn't much stuff that repeats unlike PDZ's case.
Conker you can replay each chapter. But it's even better because you can choose exactly which part of any chapter you want to replay. Of course, both games does have vehicles you can use. Jetpack being optional in one mission late into it to finish the mission faster. Sadly, that's other vehicle sessions aren't great or even rememberable.
In Conker's Bad Fur Day, you get to ride on an dinosaur eating cavemen or ride in a few tanks. Now how awesome is both of those? PDZ doesn't give you any vehicles for bosses that are using vehicles. In Conker's case, none of them are riding any vehicles. There's just something about head butting a giant caveman's sack then biting pieces of his butt off.
I just got to mention another boss that's a talking boiler with huge brass balls lol. It is hilarious when Conker hits them a couple of them to send both of them flying around the room. In the single player, Conker only gets an shotgun for Spooky Chapter or two Uzis in It's War Chapter. Those aren't counting your default Frying Pan, yes you can actually hit a few characters with it.
Obviously, Perfect Dark Zero has a lot more weapons including a shield. There's a few improvements over the classic weapons while the newer ones doesn't stand out as much. Stuff like the Laptop Gun is simply way better in the original Perfect Dark game in comparison. There's actual exploring in Conker's Bad Fur Day.
Sure it isn't the degree of Banjo-Kazooie series or Jet Force Gemini. But you still have to figure out where to go sometimes. In PDZ, if you get lost just wait for these nearly invisible blue arrows to point you into the right direction. Now I would've said that's helpful. Except, it only shows up when it feels like it should.
Even the menus there's no contest. Perfect Dark Zero's menu isn't terrible just not going to caught your eyes. Now look at Conker's Bad Fur Day, you get to see a bar filled with characters. There's a fire imp near by the fire place to confirm or not if a cheat code works or not. There's a few cameos of both Banjo & Kazooie respectively as well.
This alone comes off more lively as well as interesting. I still haven't played many games that have an main menu set up like this I'm not kidding. Now you may have to enter in Easy or Very Easy to get the difficulty down in comparison. Yet there's another code to instantly give you fifty lifes since there's a life system.
There's also a hidden tail that gives you ten lifes at once. In Conker, you need to collect chocolate to heal while it's automatic in PDZ. But if you get damage to a degree, the overall amount of health you have goes down. Now because of that I rather have something like Conker than having an issue like this.
I will agree parts within Conker's Bad Fur Day aren't aging well. I will be the first to say that, it's still aging better than PDZ though. There are difficulty spikes that sucks at times in both these games. I get more of that from PDZ. Conker is a more interesting main character to this version of Joanna as well. He goes out of his way usual for money to help people, at times doing something horrible to others.
Overall, Conker's Bad Fur Day simply took a bigger risk, a small cast that really outdone themselves, more multiplayer options, better boss fights and a better single player campaign. Yes I know that's a bit lengthy. Conker's Bad Fur Day is way better than Perfect Dark Zero. Just for fun, if I were to done this with the Xbox remake.
I actually would've said PDZ's multiplayer is better. Even with Chapter X campaign, just a major step down from the N64 game's multiplayer. To me, PDZ is a major step down in every category to the original N64 game itself. The win likely would've went to the Xbox remake as well. It just felt more complete in comparison as well as being more unique at it's very core.
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