REVIEW : Chicken Police (PC)
Classed as a visual novel, Chicken Police is anything but. Making your way through this game you feel as if you’re working a case with Bogart…if he was a monstrous chicken. The setting is Clawville, where the streets are grey, and what little colour that’s left is in the rich parts of town. This play leads as a point and click visual novel, but proposes elements that help it move into adventure territory. Thanks to its unique voice characters, not once did I feel like I was going through walls of text.
You’re introduced as Sonny Featherland, a broken and out cop on the edge of retirement. Your ex-partner, Marty MacChicken is a gun nut who managed to shoot you on your last job collectively. The scene is black and white, but the case bleeds red. An impala stands in your office and informs you that her boss is being threatened. You’ve been picked for the job as you’re popular thanks to a crime series written about your prior cases, and this client requires strength as she’s related to the mob.
A debut release from The Wild Gentleman, the progress of this game has gone from 8-bit pixels to the photo-animated designs you see today. Sticking chicken heads on human bodies may sound strange, and be a little nervous at first, but the team pulled it off well, creating a surplus of fauna to gawk and ‘aw’ at.
The writing sticks to its style, with chicken puns a-plenty, and nods to the film-noir greats. But beware, with quite random cruelty, what in one scene is written as ‘cluck’, soon turns to a higher rating, causing this game to come with an adult-only label for not much reason. The characters are suitably cast, and have the excellent accents to match, making you look forward to meeting them after a profile sketch has been added to your journal.
Every detective has his notebook, and Sonny’s consists of ‘Clues’, ‘People’, ‘Places’, & a ‘Codex’. This is good to read through as more are added, as there are times you may find valuable information within. It’s the in-depth detail of the world you’re forced into that shows how much thought has gone into this game. The codex contains lore, and Gods as well as data about whole continents and their people.
Ticking off all film-noir boxes, we see flashbacks, hear talk about the great ‘meat war’, and are introduced to a femme fatale dame in distress. The tone is dark, with a slow jazz soundtrack. Occasionally you’ll be introduced to a mini-game such as exploding another car or zipping up a lady’s dress. The only other area that lacks explanation and is, sadly, an integral part is when we can question characters.
The interrogation process gives you choices of what to ask on the left, and your notepad of ‘Subject’, ‘Focus’, and ‘Impressions’ on the right, with a detective meter of plus or minus determining how well you have chosen the options that were given to you.
IMPRESSSIONS : Ghost Recon Breakpoint TU303 (PC)
