Comedy is often a tricky thing. Nostalgia laden comedy is an even more tricky thing. Cyber Chicken is is 2.5D side-scrolling adventure featuring cybernetic poultry as a futuristic killing machine out to save the world. It bills itself as a satirical romp across pop culture and modern life, and while it has good intentions, the comedy more often than not falls flat.
Title: Cyber Chicken
Genre: Action, Adventure, Indie
Developer: WHOA!
Publisher: Groupees Interactive
This is a game steeped in 80’s pop-culture, but it’s so over the top in its approach that the comedy never quite works. Everything comes off so heavy handed that any subtly is lost over forced quotes and tired jokes that we’ve seen done better dozens of times before.
That said, it’s not a terrible experience, just one that will have you shaking your head at the writing, instead of laughing along with it. You are a Terminator; no, really, you are called a Terminator outright in the game. This comes along with all the quotes associated with the film. I could go on, but it’s more annoying than anything.
But we really aren’t here for a BAFTA nominated story. We are here to find out if the gameplay makes up for the silly writing. And, well, it sort of is, but only sort of. The game is a side-scroller done in 2.5D with everything rendered in full 3D. It’s not a bad looking game and there are no real visual issues that I noted while playing.
If I had to compare the game to another, I’d peg it for an almost pseudo sequel to Duke Nukem: The Manhattan Project. While that game wasn’t amazing, it’s not a bad comparison as I very-much liked that game. You run back and forth, you shoot a bunch of baddies, you do a lot of backtracking and so on.
There is nothing that pushes any limits, but everything does work. Controller support is there, but you can’t rebind the buttons, even though the options say you can. There has been an update since so this isn’t an issue now, but it was during our initial playthrough of the game. Choosing to play with keyboard and mouse works better anyways, so it’s not that big of a deal.
There are a number of weapons that you can upgrade via kiosks scattered across stages, but odds are you’re going to be backtracking a lot as the enemies are a real pain in the ass. They aren’t challenging in the modern sense, instead they just pile them on to make up for any real AI. In the retro sense this makes sense, but I’ve never been a fan of a game that is difficult just for being difficult sake.
Where things really get a bit cocked up is in the jumping mechanics. Your Cyber Chicken is quite floaty and you never really feel comfortable with where you are going to land, or if you’ll even make it. You will be missing platforming jump quite a bit whether that be from coming up short, overshooting, or thanks to shoddy collision detection with ledges. It’s actually quite surprising how floaty you are for a massive Terminator.
As you play the game will let you purchase new weapons as well as upgrade them through the various kiosks. This is necessary, but the new weapons don’t always feel or work better than your normal pistol. Ammo also runs out pretty well and the only way to get more is via the kiosks. Cyber Chicken has a lot of backtracking, but most of that is due to fighting a few enemies and then going back to a kiosk to get ammo and heal up.
There are also abilities that can be purchased that you will need to help access new stages or areas. This is all fine, but you often have to make a choice between an upgrade or a weapon upgrade which means you’ll have to come back after earns more money. Cyber Chicken isn’t terrible, but you’re going to feel like much of the game is spent hunting for kiosks, or taking the chance if you can survive until you run into the next one.
The game also saves on the fly, but there were a lot of times where I simply couldn’t continue as the game saved my game without any ammo while putting me next to a huge group of enemies. There are lots of little frustrations while playing Cyber Chicken, but at least everything works.
Cyber Chicken isn’t terrible and I will note that the developers have been working to fix a lot of the bugs that people have been catching. That said at $14.99 it’s quite the steep price for something as basic as this. I’d wait for a Steam sale before biting the bullet on this one.
2.5/5
“Simply Okay”
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