"Eat More Shicken"

Eat more shicken! For Ginger, life in the chicken coop is a miserable existence. Every day the same routine of wake up, lay eggs, and give them to the old witch happens again and again, with the only deviation being a trip to the coal box because she's failed yet again in one of her hair brained schemes to escape the farm. You see, since they are chickens, they don't have the ability to fly over the barbed wire fencing that strafes the place. Yet she believes they can with training. So when the evil lady decides to start turning them into chicken pot pies because of the rising costs of living, Ginger decides enough's enough and takes to the farm to find a way out.

Let's face it, though. She's a chicken. That's right, a chicken. That doesn't exactly give her the ability to scare the pants off of the local bouncer. Because of that, Ginger's going to have to get a bit crafty in her ways, mastering the art of chicken foo and harnessing all the power of a stealthy gorilla. By the time she's done with them, the enemies in Chicken Run are going to be begging for mercy. Rabid dogs? No problem. Searchlights? Out of sight, dino might. Chicken potpie machines with laser beams? Now there may be a problem. You see, Ginger doesn't have to only get herself out, but also the raving bunches of chickens on the farm.

Throughout her journeys, Ginger will be visiting a variety of places (most of which have an astoundingly same level design). These places range from the grounds inside the chicken coop to the very confines of the potpie machine itself. How she manages to lead the chickens around these places is completely up to you, but it for sure isn't going to be an easy feat. For example, the potpie machine level features Ginger sneaking past a variety of searchlights that upon spotting you will shoot you with deadly laser beams. Only shooting you would be a crime, though. They'll also shoot the chickens you're trying to lead around.

To put it bluntly, the game suffers heavily from the fact that the chickens you're leading have the AI of about a pea. They're idiots. Forget about walking in a neat line behind you, they'll trail along, getting stuck behind some invisible wall or seen by a conveniently placed searchlight. To make matters worse, once they are seen, you have two options. Either let your score suffer by allowing the chicken to get hanged, or go back for it and risk having to complete the level all over again if you fail in your attempt to get back out in time. Tough decision, no?

To try to cope with this “Little” problem, the developers decided to implement a certain game play formula that relies on telling you to scout out the area before bringing the chickens in. Too bad it's only a waste of time. Just because you can slip past the annoying traps and enemies doesn't mean the imbeciles you're trying to lead around can. More often than not it'll do you just as well to take the chickens in on the first run, if only to save yourself more agony down the road when you wind up sending the chickens left with one life to your name.

For what it's worth, the game tries to redeem itself with the graphics a music, and for the most part, they do a good job with it. The title is decently colorful, nicely shaded, and runs smoothly to boot. Saying that you missed an enemy because you couldn't make it out would be a lie – for the most part every area is lightened to perfection. The darker levels (those that heavily rely on stealth) are given their own beauty treatment, putting off a pseudo-glow that gives the player the ability to see without compromising the atmosphere present. The music featured is just as good, even if it is a bit tinny. Tracks are decently varied (they won't use the same track in back to back levels, for instance), while the music itself is up-beat and cheery, taking a similar approach to the actual movie.

Unfortunately, even those things just can't make up for all of the horrendous mistakes that they made. For one, the enemies present (the rabid dogs and evil robots I mentioned earlier) have the AI of a super computer, following you around with pinpoint accuracy and ready to pick off your chickens like a turkey line on thanksgiving. Searchlights (the game's main form of stealth addiction), are always conveniently placed in some of the most hideous places possible, making much of the game absolutely infuriating unless you have the keen ability to know when to move and when not to. Level design, another thing that should have been up to par on a title like this, winds up being repetitive, unimaginative, and not really that fun at all. The same design idea that you see in one level will more likely than not be seen in another, leading to a horrible play time if you're stuck playing the same area for more than a couple of times, which unfortunately happens far too often.

To say that this game got the shaft is an understatement, and it really is a darn shame. Chicken Run was an excellent movie, had some great characters, and told a story that kept me awake (something that all the recent junk just can't do). They had some key elements working for them in the form of the stealth areas, but just couldn't deliver when it came to making use of the game's main focus – chicken leading. It may have been better to just have let the chickens run.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 06/26/07