We Review: Rocketbirds Hardboiled Chicken (PS3)

ROCKETBIЯDS: Hardboiled Chicken is a new platform shooter game for the PS3, available for download only on the PSN. You can almost never go wrong with a good platform game, and platform shooters are even better. Even if the name of the game is actually pronounced “rocketbiyads”. [Ed: By the same token, smartass, your word “review” in the title image is supposed to be pronounced “reviesch”, so it goes both ways.] Does Rocketbirds share the brilliance of other platform shooters? Hit the jump to find out. 

I love platform games, and this is probably a throwback to my earliest days as a gamer. Some of my fondest memories were of playing games on my old BBC Model B and Commodore 64 machines. In fact, these two machines at the time were far superior to the IBM PCs of the day as far as games were concerned. The 4-colour CGA in my 8088 PC couldn’t compare to the 16 colours in my BBC.  Still, I digress. [Ed: I don’t think you know how to do anything BUT digress…] I think the best way to explain my feelings and impression of Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken is to detail what happened when I fired it up.

Picture it: my lounge, early evening (it’s probably cleaner in your imagination than in reality, so imagine the odd kids’ toy lying here and there). I had a nice cup of tea in front of me, and a snack on a plate next to that. I was going to watch a nice little bit of TV to relax, but the show I was itching to watch hadn’t started up yet. I think to myself that I should be upgrading to a PVR so that I don’t have to sit and wait for TV shows to start. I’d just finished downloading Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, though, so I figured: what the heck. I’ll take a quick look and maybe watch an intro video, or, if my show hadn’t started by then, maybe I’d play a little bit of the first level.

I missed my show. The tea went cold. The snack remained uneaten. A “quick look” had turned into a evening of chickeny mayhem and trigger happiness. I REALLY need to get a PVR.

After this, I went and did a bit of research into what Rocketbirds was all about. Turns out that Rocketbirds started as a Flash animation called “Welcome to Albatropolis” by Tan Sian Yue back in 2000. From there, it was made into a Flash-based game—called Rocketbirds Revolution—that was nominated as a triple finalist at the 2010 Independent Games Festival. Revolution was subsequently polished, expanded, renamed to Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, and pushed onto the PSN, to fly or fall as it may.

That’s your history lesson over for this review. Let’s see what this game is about. Rocketbirds stars Hardboiled Chicken, allegedly the original “Cock of War”, a revolutionary who is trying to free Albatropolis from the evil, tyrannical rule of Putzki and his tyrannical penguin army. Obviously, this means putting a bullet through Putzki’s pengiuny head. Why couldn’t it have been a tyrannical duck? Are ducks just not seen as evil enough? One day I’d love to see a game starring a tyrannical duck. My pen name here has nothing to do with it. The opening cinematic, with awesome music by New World Revolution, brilliantly shows how Hardboiled lands himself in enemy territory, ready to overthrow the regime. At points between chapters, Hardboiled’s past comes through in a series of music-video like cinematics, showing how he ended up taking on the penguin regime.

It’s nice to see a species so often maligned in video games playing the role of the protagonist, and a species so often portrayed as “cute cuddly hug him squeeze him love him and name him George” playing  the bad guys. I’m a huge fan of role reversals.

The game itself is a platform (cover-based) shooter with some puzzle elements later in the game, all taking place over succession of beautifully rendered screens. If that weren’t enough, there are even a few aerial dogfight levels, where Hardboiled dons a jetpack and takes to the skies to fire upon similarly airborne penguins. The game still retains much of the look and feel of its Flash roots, but the backgrounds are oh-so-gorgeous. Hardboiled himself eventually picks up a nice array of weapons with which to take down the penguin army, including a mind-control bug that allows you to wander around as an enemy penguin and open doors, operate lifts, kill penguins that Hardboiled cannot otherwise reach. Bear in mind that these are not cute, cuddly, lovable penguins. These are military penguins. With guns.

The platforming itself is great fun, with the possible exception of scenarios where deft and quick movement is required. Hardboiled takes a few steps to ramp up to a full run, and jumping can be a tricky. Nothing that can’t be overcome if you know Hardboiled’s limitations, but still a little frustrating, especially in timed levels where you’re trying to get from A to B quickly. The other incredibly minor issue I had was with seeing the edges of platforms against the backgrounds. I’m not sure if this is something to be put down to my colour-blindness or just the sheer amount of detail in the environment, so take this one with a little bit of chicken spice. Beyond this, there’s very little to fault Rocketbirds with: the game is otherwise responsive, and the puzzles are suitably frustrating enough to give you a bit of pause before you reach that wonderful “a-ha!” moment. The feel of the game is very Abe’s Oddysee mixed with Joe Blade mixed with Rush ‘n Attack.

If you manage to defeat the single-player campaign, there’s a separate co-op campaign that tasks you and a friend, this time as militant budgerigars, with rescuing the daughter of the general. The screens are similar, but the puzzle elements change, due to the co-op nature of the campaign. It’s awesome fun to be had with a friend. Sadly, co-op is limited to local play only, and not online. I’m finding this more a problem with PSN games than XBLA games, but I’ll save that argument for another article.

Overall, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken is brilliant fun to play, with one hell of an awesome soundtrack, and it’s surprisingly deep for a download-only title. Incidentally, am I alone in finding that smaller indie studios are starting to make better games than big, triple-A studios? Perhaps it’s a whole “too many cooks” thing, who knows. If you’re up for a fun platform-(cover-based)-shooter-puzzle game, consider giving Rocketbirds a go; if nothing else, you’ll have found a new appreciation for chickens. If my review doesn’t convice you, do yourself a favour and at least try the trial available on the PSN.

Forget Angry Birds. Chickens with jet packs are where it’s at now.

Score: 9 penguin-flavoured prawns out of 10

Detailed Information:

Developer: Ratloop Asia
Release date: 18 October 2011
Platform: PS3
RRP:  R95 on PSN
Age Rating: 12