Pretty, if not too creative

​After diving into Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken, I was reminded of my first high school dance. I had a crush on one of the prettiest girls in my class and, after a while, I finally worked up the courage to ask her out onto the floor. After cutting a few rugs, however, I discovered that she didn't have a whole lot to say at first.

While a romance never blossomed, we did keep hanging out following that dance, becoming friends. After spending a bit more time with her I realized that, while not the most original girl on the block, she certainly had her charms. Our relationship could have ended after a dance or two, but we kept at it and ended up having some pretty good times together.

Anyway, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken was a lot like that. Still with me?

 

A lot of work has clearly gone into Rocketbirds, a PSN exclusive that got its start as an indie PC flash game. The game looks absolutely gorgeous, the soundtrack is great and the options are plentiful. There's a 15-chapter single player game to get through, a 10-chapter couch co-op campaign and stereoscopic 3D that works with just about any pair of two-color glasses you happen to have laying around the house.

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A few chapters in, though, and I started feeling like Rocketbirds might be all flash and no bang. All of the components were there, but nothing about the game was actually engaging me.

A sidescrolling action platformer, Rocketbirds has the player running around 2D landscapes trying to match color-coded key cards to their locks, shooting penguin soldiers with a standard array of weapons, sliding boxes to reach higher ledges, etc. The action is occasionally broken up by jetpack levels that control something like a two-stick shooter, but even that didn't seem to spice things up enough.

I stuck with it, though, and was well rewarded for my perseverance. About a third of the way into the game, all of the various components started to click. The individual mechanics that made up the more simplistic puzzles of earlier chapters started to get mixed and matched in ways that required some actual "solving" to get through, the shooting became more varied and all the quirky sights and sounds started to wrap around me like a warm, groovy blanket.

In Rocketbirds, you take on the role of Hardboiled Chicken, a pissed off rooster (despite his name) looking to kick an evil penguin regime out of the city of Albatropolis. Hardboiled's reasons for fighting are highlighted by music video-esque cutscenes between many of the chapters, set to the music of New World Revolution and making for one of the coolest aspects of the game. It's a perfect sound and a great way to tell the story.

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Gameplay is a mix of Rush'n Attack and Oddworld: Abe's Odysey. You can jump, shoot, duck, roll and drop back in shadows to avoid fire. You can also chuck these little bugs that, when exploding near a penguin guard, allow you to take control of the hardboiled baddie. This trick will help you get through many of Rocketbirds' puzzles and, I'm a little ashamed to admit, making the penguins off themselves when they were of no more use filled me with a certain sadistic glee.

While there's nothing new here, the bizarre world is a fun one to play in and all of those borrowed elements eventually gel nicely, making for an entertaining, *ahem* hardboiled romp.

As good as the game looks, though, the dark palette often made it hard to tell what was going on in a level. Some ledges were hard to see, holes in the floor would surprise me and grating (which you'll need to throw many a brain bug or grenade through) weren't immediately obvious. I had a friend over to play the co-op campaign (A group of Budgie Commandos sent in to save the general's daughter), and the hard-to-read surfaces was her only complaint. And no, she's not the same girl from the earlier analogy. But that's sweet of you to remember my story.

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Speaking of the co-op, while the story utilizes recycled levels, they've been reworked in a way that requires teamwork to get through. The puzzles are nowhere near as complex as the later chapters of the game proper, but we both had a fun time shooting penguins, thinking through the problems and climbing on each others shoulders to reach higher platforms or become a two-gunned killing machine.

Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken has its flaws --particularly the slow start-- but if you take the time to build a relationship, you'll find it was worth the effort.

Rocketbirds was developed by Ratloop Asia and releases exclusively to PSN today.

The Official Verdict: 3 out of 5

This review is based on a PSN download provided by the publisher.