10 Famous Video Games That Started Out As Something Else Entirely

4. Conker's Bad Fur Day

No one who had seen the early images of Conker's Quest (later renamed Twelve Tales: Conker 64) could have imagined that the cutesy squirrel character from the same studio that brought us Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie would turn out something like Conker's Bad Fur Day. But it was fear of comparison to such titles as those as "yet another cute platformer" which led the developers to perform a South Park-inspired overhaul. Interestingly enough, Conker already had one previous title to his name under the old aesthetic in Conker's Pocket Tales for the Game Boy Color. Lighthearted and designed to appeal to a general audience, the lackluster reception seemingly validated Rare's worries and justified the dramatic switch to a game so heavily M-rated that Nintendo Power refused to cover it and KB Toys refused to carry it, while advertisements ran in the likes of Playboy magazine instead. Even in its homeland, Nintendo of Europe wouldn't touch the game, leaving it to be published there by THQ instead. Unlike Pocket Tales' tepid reception, Conker's Bad Fur Day was a hit with critics, and is still remembered fondly to this day for some of its crude humor, not the least of which being the musical number by The Great Mighty Poo (warning: NSFW). Plans were underway for a sequel, but then Rare was bought up by Microsoft, and so they went about working on a remake of Bad Fur Day instead. Originally called "Conker: Live & Uncut," what was originally going to be a fully-uncensored version of the title actually wound up being more sanitized than Nintendo's in some ways - and at Microsoft's behest, no less, as it eventually made its way to market as Conker: Live & Reloaded.