Chicken Little Video Game


Abstract:
Multi-genre fun.

Body:
Historically, movie-tie-in video games are some of the worst games ever created: bad programming, crummy graphics, no plot characterize them. But the Chicken Little video game, available on several platforms, is a nice exception to this rule.

After seeing Chicken Little in the theater, my girlfriend was in love with the movie. We got the video game to hold us over until the DVD release. I didn't expect much of the title because of my past experience with tie-in games. But from the first level Chicken Little was fun. At first the game appears to be a 3D platformer, which it partially is. You play as Chicken Little and complete objectives that match events in the movie. But as you progress through the levels the game play changes. It's not just a platformer, but a racing game, a sports game, a DDR-style game, a first person shooter, an overhead shooter, and more. And all of the game types are implemented fairly well, so it's not like the developers spread themselves thin and produced a bad title. My guess is that they have a library of code for developing many different genre games, so all they have to do with character and level design. I hope that's the case, because then we can expect similar quality from other tie-in games.

I had fun playing Chicken Little, and not just because of the movie tie-in. The game stayed fresh because you never had a chance to get tired of its game play; it varied just the right amount to keep things interesting by playable.

Posted: Mon - February 27, 2006 at 01:31 PM         |    

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