Chicken Police – Paint it Red! (Clucking Animal Noir Game)

 

At some point in the course of my playthrough of Chicken Police, the new LA-noir-but-where-everybody-has-an-animal-for-a-head game from Handygames, me and my roommate decided we would drink to Sonny Featherland, our protagonist, every time he or his junior partner Marty MacChicken made use of any form of “cluck” (as in “cluck off”), and any time Marty called Sonny his “bossbird.” By the time we hit one of the climaxes, we were so far gone that we weren’t sure if the controller was drifting or we were. This one is a point-and-click thriller in which you play as a washed up lush, and so our drinking game was the videogame critic’s equivalent of method acting, if you will. If you are familiar with film noir, Chicken Police will not surprise you. There’s the aforementioned former, slightly disgraced alcoholic cop doing some PI work. There’s a racist schmuck police captain who may or may not be corrupt. There are enough femme fatales, old and young, skinny and voluptuous, to over-saturate even Humphrey Bogart and turn him off of women forever. And of course there is that old Irish beaver named Uncle Mullen who owns a newsstand and shows up in every film noir ever. Well, I suppose he’s something of a new addition to the concept.

   

The art direction and attention to detail in Chicken Police are stunning; you’ll often find yourself clicking on walls to look at old posters for movies like “The Big Sheep.” The voice acting is equally great, evocative of a time when dames used to arrive in dark, smoke-filled offices asking for help with criminal troubles. But the gameplay isn’t perfect. The minigames are superfluous, like the developers needed to throw some extra shit in just to make sure it wasn’t entirely a talking simulator, and some of the puzzles leave you pixel-hunting through unrelated locations to find a random image unrelated to the plot. These moments are few and far between, however, and the main mechanic involves interrogating suspects, which is silky smooth. Perhaps Chicken Police would have been better as a full-on talking simulator with the other stuff excised out. But overall it’s a great experience, clearly put together with a lot of love for old film noir. It revolves entirely around the story, acting and art direction and those three aspects deliver in spades. And wow, what a cluckin’ ending. I’m just kidding, I was black out drunk by then. I have no clue what happens. If you were ever looking for the opportunity to play as a 1940s detective with the head of a chicken, this is the game for you.

 

Chicken Police – Paint it Red! Official Steam

Written by Callous MacKrazy

Chicken Police – Paint it Red!
The Wild Gentleman (developer, HandyGames (publisher)
4.2 / 5