RocketBirds: Hardboiled Chicken is a blend of shooting, puzzles, and great music. It stars a shotgun wielding, bandana toting, super buff chicken with a one goal, kill the penguin overlord. Normally this premise is something that I would laugh heartily at but not in this game, RocketBirds is serious business. There is humor in the game to be sure, but every major story scene is a filled with visions of war and oppression that, in spite of the games chickeny nature, it pulls off very effectively. Albatropolis is not a happy place and every single thing you see in the game is used to drive home that point.
Very rarely do games give you such a sense of place as RocketBirds does. The richly detailed world is littered with little ques that point to a world in turmoil and duress. The Penguins have taken over in an almost Nazi like fasion and have occupied all of RocketBird land. Small Canaries carry sad face signs while larger Cardinals cause unrest against the armed Penguin enforcers. For such a silly sounding idea this bird war is filled with enough symbolism that the more pretentious among us might try to claim it for the “games as art” debate. Those of us with a bit more common sense would point out that we just force fed a Penguin two helpings of buckshot pie and tell those pretentious people to shut up. No matter what side of that fowl debate I made up, nobody would be able to say that RocketBirds did not create a stunning view of an occupied world.
What is also very stunning to me is the level design. While there is quite a bit of buckshot pie baking there is also a lot of puzzles to be had. I like a bit of puzzle with my violence but RocketBirds takes it one step farther with mind benders that sometimes traverse the entire level. The block you moved to jump up to a higher block before might become the integral piece to getting the last key card in the stage. It never once devolves into “get the three keycards and go.” Sometimes you are even asked to take over enemy Penguins and control them to finish the level in a sort of Oddworld like mechanic. I was always challenged by these puzzles without being too overwhelmed and the sense of satisfaction was great when I saw everything line up perfectly.
I wish that I could say I had the same satisfaction with the combat in RocketBirds. The combat is basically broken up into two forms, Jetpaction and normal combat. Jetpaction time feels like a reward during the game because you are no longer super vulnerable and are more like a bird of prey. You will fly super fast to the beat of some awesome music hunting down the Penguins foolish enough to fight you. Then when you are on the ground much less powerful and much easier to kill. You can stand and shoot straight or couch down to shoot a bit straight lower but there is no other option for aiming. Normally those two options work but sometimes the controls can be a bit sticky and it becomes hard to switch left to right to juggle the enemies to avoid a shot. Add that to the cast that except in certain corridors there is no way to avoid a shot and you have a potentially annoying fight on your hands. More than one there was an enemy with a rifle standing right behind an enemy with a shield all the way on the other side of the screen. If you get into that situation just accept deaths sweet embrace and try again. Other times I found myself juggled between two enemies with no way to stop the onslaught and my death felt very cheap. It saddens me that the combat has these errors because everything else about it felt very solid and fun. I only died cheaply a handful of times but it was enough to taint the overall experience.
What I did not expect is how much fun the Co-op would be despite having the same combat problems. Multiplayer takes most of the levels from the campaign and turns them around in a different way to make them interesting. I was able to convince my wife to play this game with me and by the second level she was telling me how amazing she thought it was. I shared her sentiment because even though I had played through these levels before they had been changed just enough to keep it fresh and interesting. You have to choose between six different smaller birds that range in difficulty based on their weapon of choice. The birds can stand on each other’s shoulders to solve certain puzzles or to become a small flock of death. The story for co-op is really dumb, with you chasing a mentally handicapped heiress while she runs headlong into danger. Also lacking from co-op is any sort of online component which is not a huge gripe but really could have increased the reach of this mode. I really enjoyed this mode and I am only disappointed by how much greater it could have been based on the amount of fun I had with it.
The last thing that must be talked about in RocketBirds is the music. The band New World Revolution does all the in game music and it is all fantastic. Music is something that many games today take for granted and usually use in a terrible manner, or just during the credits. RocketBirds not only uses the music during the entirety of the game but uses it in such a way to help make the world seem more believable. Granted it is a game about Chickageddon but N.W.R’s music is placed so thoughtfully into the experience that it makes the game more than what it is. I am not sure if I even want to see this more in todays games because RocketBirds and N.W.R mixed together was such a special treat that I want to remain untainted.
RocketBirds is a great game and I would suggest it to everyone. It has some flaws, some that are greater than others, but not so many that I wanted to turn the game off. The single player gives you a sense of an oppressed world in need of a savior. The Co-operative lets you enjoy tiny tweeter mayhem with a friend. Together with an amazing soundtrack this game is an experience that mostly outweighs the negatives it presents.
