There's a story in Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D, but believe us, you won't need one. The game — whose title reads about as gracefully as magnetic poetry — sees you gunning down chickens for 90 seconds. Then, we guess, you can do it again. If you'd like to. You may not, but the option to play again is about the only option the game gives you at all, so we'll take it.
The controls, thankfully, are great — at least in the main stage. Bonus stage controls are another issue, but we'll get to those in a moment. The main game sees you aiming with the stylus and firing with the L button. It's an arrangement fans of Kid Icarus: Uprising are familiar with, and it works just as well here. It's easy to aim and fire, and as those are the main actions of the game, that's a good thing.
Reloading is handled by tapping a small button on the touch screen, and there's a score penalty for doing so, which helps to inject an element of conservative strategy to proceedings, rather than reward mindless chicken massacre.
Unfortunately the game itself consists of only a single stage, and there is a strict time limit of 90 seconds... both of which dampen the fun a great deal. The lack of any other stages means that you will literally see everything this title has to offer within a minute and a half, and there won't be any reason to return unless you'd like to better your score. The stage is populated with comical animations and hidden items, but they aren't randomised so once you've seen them there's no novelty in a return visit.
Teyon's own Bird Mania 3D also featured a single stage, but its endless nature and randomly generated layouts made it worth revisiting. Here it's the same experience every time, and that's a problem.
Interestingly enough, the fact that the stage always plays out the same way can lend itself to some interesting strategising. After all, with only 90 seconds to play with, every shot needs to count, and some shots can count more than others. Triggering certain events can lead to big score bonuses, and avoiding the targets that provide smaller rewards is wise. We won't spoil them for you here, but if you consult the manual you'll see a more or less exhaustive score breakdown, along with tips on how to earn a few extra seconds or a better gun. All of this sounds good, but the measly 90 seconds you're given by default makes the experience feel cramped and unsatisfying.
If you achieve a high enough score, you will be taken to a bonus stage in which you fire a shipboard cannon at approaching chicken boats. Sentences like that, by the way, are the reason we love to review video games.
The bonus stage's controls aren't quite as good. You drag the stylus to aim and fire the weapon, but it's simply too sluggish to be much fun. The bonus stage in general feels improperly refined, and more like some leftover feature that is still attached to the game despite the fact that it clearly never made it past the beta stage.
The animations are smooth but the character designs are an acquired taste, and the 3D effect doesn't really affect gameplay much. The music is forgettable but certainly not bad.
One more major issue is that this game errs in the same way as Bomb Monkey, which is to say that it's a score attack game that never makes it easy for you to see how your score compares to others. Unless you memorize your score before the level ends, you won't know where on the list you just ended up. That's a huge missed opportunity, and the fact that you have to enter your name fresh each time — rather than having separate profiles for quick entry — just makes it feel laborious. Spending 40 seconds entering your name after only 90 seconds of gameplay is a criminal imbalance.
Conclusion
Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D isn't bad, but it's certainly disappointing. As much potential as there was for a fun, frantic shooting gallery, the 90 second time limit really hampers the experience. The single stage on offer here may well keep you entertained for a few minutes, but there's no denying that this chicken is underdone.
Comments 28
Yeah, didn't expect much from it.
These Crazy Chicken games have a certain unique popularity in Germany, apparently.
Over there they are known as Moorhuhn, and each one appears to be more or less the same thing, basically shooting chickens in a limited number of stages (possibly one) with a time limit.
I have a copy of Moorhuhn 2 for Gameboy Color and it is effectively the same thing, a basic stage with a time limit, shooting chickens.
For the Gameboy Color it had a surprisingly impressive range of colors in its palette, as all the graphics were pre-renders. They may have actually been on-par with GBA pre-render visuals.
Its Moorhuhn !! enough said. When it comes to EU its instant downlad
eshop is losing its quality of 3D games D:
Yikes, I'm fleein' the coop on this one!
never understood the popularity of the "moorhuhn"-games here in germany
Hmm. Pass, obviously.
The controls are great that is all I wanted to know instabuy for me
Would it have gotten an extra point if it were Crazy Chicken Brutus Pirates?
Yes.
Haha...fun they are still making these. Saw a doc about the hype that happened 12 or 13 years ago here in Germany. But honestly: If they make a good one for the 3DS...I'd buy it for a few bucks....not convinced by this though.
Figured, this game looked doomed from the start, at least in my eyes.
Ehh...
Might buy this if I have nothing else to buy if I ever have $2 left over on the eShop.
Thanks for the review Phil! I was thinking about getting it just because it was a cheap time waster and I'm sad I won't be able to play NSMB2 for a while (I have Fri-Sat off but I'm busy next week). But based on your review of this and your mention of Bird Mania 3D I think I'll get that instead and be much more entertained and calmed (dang US release date for Mario).
I knew this would be bad, but glad to see that it will work if you like these games.
UGH! Chalk up another half programmed game to the Eshop.....The Horror The Horror. I really thought it would be better than this. My patience is starting to wear thin it maybe time to start lookin into just android and or Ipad gaming. I had such High hopes
Looks cer way zay.
@Windy: Um, to be fair, every downloadable service has lousy games on them. You can't bash the entire platform for a few bad eggs (har har )
I wholly agree that it could have used a lot more content, but for it's price, I find it decent and fun.
Isn't this series a continuation of Alfred Chicken on the SNES?
Only 1 level? Pass!!
Actually, this game is quit enjoyable.
Here's the final boss of a Teyon game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euLdpcby-2s&list=FLv-BnS-ZS6N_nCLYcH49qig&index=5&feature=plpp_video
I did not expect a 5! I mean, I know that the game company MumboJumbo has it's flaws, but I like Crazy Chicken. I'm so disappointed.
@Windy You think the Eshop is bad? Go on. I bet you can't stand 5 minutes of the horrid apple app store due to the heavy amount of apps that crash a lot, do nothing, rip off something, ETC.
5 out of 10? Dude, like, seriously.
Got it for free this morning! Oh yeah!
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