10 Critically-Acclaimed Video Games NO ONE Played

Conker’s Bad Fur Day, a phenomenal game hamstrung by one of the most bizarre marketing campaigns ever.

Ninteno was a family friendly icon, Mario being its most visible face. The developers of Conker’s Bad Fur Day, Rare, however, created a firmly adult game, with toilet humour aplenty, copious sexual innuendo, and lots of over-the-top violence.

Critics understood what Rare was doing: the humour was described as ‘cleverly lewd’ and its spoofs of popular movies ‘dead on.’ On top of the comedy it was also a mechanically superb game, praised for its ‘drop dead gorgeous’ graphics, creative level design and an advanced facial animation system able to accurately portray Conker’s mood.

But most buyers did not understand. The game was was marketed to adult males by advertising in bars and adult magazines, this with a cute anthropomorphic squirrel as protagonist. Parents, fooled by said squirrel and the Nintendo label both, were horrified at the sophomoric content.

Consequently the game was arguably too cute for adults and too adult for kids. Hence, it flopped, selling only about 55,000 copies within its first month of release, low numbers for a game that earned a 92 Metacritic rating.

Today the game is no longer on sale, a real pity as modern gamers would be far more likely to appreciate it.