Chicken Run - Game Boy Color - Review

In the year 2000, British animation studio Aardman Animations released their first feature length film; Chicken Run. The studio, best known for their charming character duo, Wallace & Gromit would find great success with Chicken Run both critically and commercially with the film becoming the highest grossing stop-motion film ever released at the time.

The story follows the plight of a rooster named Rocky and a chicken named Ginger as they and their hen friends try to escape their prison like farm. The farm’s owners Mr & Mrs Tweedy have decided to stop farming eggs and instead start producing chicken pies to increase their dwindling profits and so Rocky, Ginger and Co. must make haste to avoid the chopping block.

In that same year a licenced game based on the film would release for the PC, Playstation and Dreamcast. The game, published by Eidos interactive and developed by Blitz Games, was fairly well received upon release often being described as a mock-metal gear solid with the player having to stealthily make their way through the farm, whilst avoiding detection.

At the same time THQ published a Chicken Run game for the Game Boy Color. The game, also developed by Blitz Games, plays very differently from the console versions and is an isometric puzzle game with 24 missions to complete, in which you take control of Rocky the Rooster.

Rocky is controlled with the D-Pad and in each mission you must use him to lead all of the hens to the exit before the timer runs out. The Hens are unable to think for themselves and if left to their own devices they will walk around aimlessly and will inevitably wander into the many hazards which inhabit each level. To avoid this, chicken feed must be placed with the A button. The hens are simple creatures and will happily follow along a trail of food to the end whereby they will attempt to seek out another trail. Holding the A button down for a second will create a large pile of feed which will keep the hens occupied  indefinitely and out of trouble whilst you scout ahead. Once you’ve created a safe passage you can carry on the trail and get the hens moving again by picking up the large pile. This is the basic premise of the game with the objective of every mission being to find a safe route for the hens and then leading them through it with a trail of feed.  

It sounds simple but Rocky must make good use of the surroundings and any objects he finds lying around to overcome obstacles and avoid the ever watchful eyes of Mr & Mrs Tweedy.  There are two different environments in the game and each has its own set of hazards to avoid and overcome.

In the Farmyard you’ll mainly have to avoid being seen by dogs and searchlights as well as having to find your way out of fenced in areas. Being detected too much the will cause the mission to be failed and it will need to be restarted.

Items you’ll find in the farmyard include find spoons which can be used to create tunnels under high fences. You’ll need to find areas of soft ground to use it on but once dug it will provide an escape route for the hens.

Cardboard boxes can found and these can be worn Solid Snake style to prevent Rocky from being seen by the searchlights and dogs. If a box is left in front of a kennel it will block the dog’s line of sight allowing the hens to safely pass. They can also be used as a step to reach high switches which will turn off certain search lights when activated.

Springboards can be positioned and angled to launch the hens over low barbed wire fences. The hens not being the most aerodynamic of birds will land with a comical splat on the other side but will otherwise be unharmed.

Traffic lights can be placed to temporarily hold the hens in place to avoid timed obstacles such as moving searchlights. The timing sequence of the lights can be quite tricky to programme though and I never quite managed to get them to work as I wanted throughout my playthrough.

The second area is the pie machine in which Rocky and the hens must navigate steam vents, exposed machinery, magic eyes, trap doors and electronic beams. As well as some of the previous items found in the farmyard the pie machine will also contain few unique items.

The wrench is used to open vents to create new routes for the hens. You can also literally throw a spanner into the works to break any dangerous, exposed machinery which will then allow the hens to pass over it safely.

Electronic keys can be picked up and used on card readers. These will remove an alarmed electronic beam which is otherwise impenetrable and if triggered will raise the suspicions of Mr & Mrs Tweedy.

Mirrors can be picked up and placed in front of the magic eyes to block their view preventing any alarms being triggered.

By using all of these items correctly the hens should theoretically be able to reach the exit with no issues whatsoever and most of the time this is true. Occasionally however, one or more of the hens will unwittingly scupper your perfectly laid out plans by deciding to go off route for seemingly no particular reason. At first I thought this was sign of the developers not having programmed the AI properly but the more I thought about the more I figured it was exactly the sort of thing a real chicken would do. So the only conclusion I can come to is that the AI is either absolutely horrible or absolutely genius. I’ll let you make up your own mind on that. Either way it led to some near Game Boy throwing moments of frustration as often 10 minutes of planning was undone at the final stretch by an insubordinate chicken.

The game is usually very fair though and actually has a very good difficulty curve. The game staggers the use of the items well, with the earlier missions often focusing on one in particular before then ramping up the difficulty by introducing more. The timer increases the tension and often times will leave little room for error which gives the missions a trial and error style of gameplay. Thankfully there are infinite continues and each mission will have a password save to carry on from.

The in-game graphics are functionally fine but otherwise fairly unappealing with the character sprites being quite small and simple and the environments looking a bit dull and uninteresting. Occasionally the game will struggle with the busy on screen action and this can result in slowdown and even some sprites disappearing altogether. This is fairly uncommon though and for the most part the game runs well enough. The between mission presentation is much better with some nice stills of the film’s characterful plasticine creations.

The music is upbeat and catchy and suits the action well. There aren’t many tracks in the game though and as you near the end you’ll wish there was a little more variety in the tunes.

Overall I had a great time with Chicken Run for the Game Boy Color. The gameplay is really solid with each mission feeling like a decently challenging and satisfying puzzle to solve. The difficulty curve is very well thought out and keeps you wanting to try just one more time. It definitely had its share of rage inducing moments but never did I want to stop playing the game entirely.

The game can be picked up easily and cheaply, so if you like what you’ve heard why not pick up a copy of Chicken Run for the Game Boy Color and help the downtrodden hens make their great escape from Tweedy farm.