Is RHC finger lickin’ good?
Video games have the potential to turn the world you know upside your head…but evil penguins? Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken has tried to throw in more oddities to distract me from the absurd diabolical force you’ll be up against in this title by strapping a chicken protagonist to a nuclear barrel that launches into the sky…but evil penguins? The flightless fiends have taken over Albatropolis, a once peaceful nation, coating it in totalitarian propaganda and brainwashing its values of greatness to the the citizens. Worse still, the somewhat cowardly dictator Putzki has taken to capturing chickens and experimenting on the poor poultry to create brain-dead super-soldiers to fight their battles for them. Enter ‘Rocketbird’, one of those aforementioned experimentations on a personal mission to bring down the empire. 
Although the simplest and most effective way of destroying an army of penguins would be to manufacture some sort of Killer Whale cannon and let it loose for a buffet, it seems that the foul-faced super-chicken and an arsenal of weapons will do the trick. Stuck on a 2D plane, Rocketbird must trundle across 15 levels tearing through penguin soldiers to liberate the land. At first, the gameplay proves basic and inoffensive, offloading one minion at a time to inevitably face slaughter by whichever way you’re facing. As you progress…the enemy’s tactic doesn’t exactly change. Sure you’ll be facing a bigger wave of penguins queueing up for slaughter, but as long as you duck and keep your trigger finger hugging the trigger button then all their fates remain the same. If you find yourself surrounded, you just have to roll under a minion and kill them from behind before dealing with anyone else. You can usually take out anything that moves before they even have a chance to respond to your presence. Thankfully, some challenge comes in jetpack segments, sections where you launch into the air and take on soldiers on a full 360 degree basis. Doesn’t sound too thrilling, but it’s ridiculously fun swooping through the air and spiralling bullets to make penguins fall to their impending dooms. Donning a jetpack certainly livens up proceedings, but unfortunately these fun additions are rather few and far between.
The narrative movies look more like awesomely constructed music videos
When you’re left weaponless, it’s up to your brain to make up for the lack of firepower. Usually these segments focus on you attempting to sneak around soldiers whom would otherwise be a laughing stock, yet these aren’t exactly mind manglers. You’ll rarely spend your time perplexed on where to go, yet it can be enjoyable to chuck a mind control bug at a hapless soldier and have him unwittingly open the way for you before shooting himself in the head. In these instances, attempting to escape confines with little but your wits replicate the old Oddworld games on the PS1, and if you’ve become an expert at those, you’ll certainly master these conundrums in a flash. The similarities to Oddworld extend to the graphical detail in locales. Everything has an incredibly gritty look to it, and as you march through the enemy base, the environments really do show a tremendous amount of attention to detail. More clean-cut are the brilliantly animated characters who look as if you’ve tuned into Cartoon Network…before a penguin becomes riddled with bullets and coats the walls in blood. Brilliantly directed cut-scenes manage to tell the tale of Rocketbird’s woe very well and is perfectly merged with a funky new-age rock soundtrack from New World Revolution makes the narrative movies look more like awesomely constructed music videos. 
Once you’ve beaten the 3-4 hour campaign, trophy hoarders will be fuelled to fight again by the promise of a platinum (something incredibly rare for a PSN title). Otherwise, the slightly altered campaign for co-op mode isn’t exactly going to convince you or anyone else to play again, especially if you don’t have a second controller as there’s no online compatibility. All the cons mentioned certainly aren’t massive negatives, but are enough to knock the pros down to a sub-par level. You can see glimmers of fantastically addictive gameplay, but Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken just focuses on its great visual quirks and brilliant soundtrack. Seeing as you’re not going to get an entirely balanced experience of quality, you’re not going to find a game that keeps you hooked for all the right reasons. It’s undoubtedly hilarious, from the worry-some dialect of the penguins to the dismantled totalitarian regime they squawk down and the animation is certainly a step up from other titles that have been cartoon pied straight in the face, but nothing else is. The combat doesn’t thrill, surprises are too few and puzzles do little to really make you engage. If you have the patience to deal with some rather simple combat and rather slow puzzle segments, then you’ll find a rather enjoyable 2D shooter here. It you’re looking for something slightly more complex and looks won’t be enough to satisfy your trigger finger, then the lack of thrills certainly won’t quench your blood lust.
The Bad: 2D side-scrolling gameplay never really gets exciting, Puzzle segments are slow and easy to complete
