REVIEW – Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D

A review by Jeremy Hardin

The splendor and the beauty of the Chicken Island would make it an ideal vacation spot – if it weren’t for those pirates. A one-legged captain, a gunner, a cutlass-wielding chicken and a treasure hunter… the island is home to countless perils, hidden extras and mysteries. The lords of the island are by no means willing to surrender themselves and their treasure without a fight. Crazy Chicken Pirates 3D is a point & shoot action game where you take aim at birds as they scurry through the island and plunge bravely into the waves for a desperate counterattack. You only have 90 seconds to complete your raid by slaying pirates and collecting all hidden treasures.

Gameplay and Controls
Your one and only goal is very quite simple, shoot the chickens.  You have 90 seconds to blast away as many chicken pirates as you can and rack up a high score.  Gameplay is limited to one screen in which you can scroll both horizontal and vertical.  The level is more wide than it is tall, so you will be focusing on moving left to right more often than not.  Scattered throughout the islands are gold coins, blue gems, and skull and crossbones symbols.  Shooting all of these will earn you extra time to blast away at those pesky pirates.  You can pan the camera by using the circle pad, however this is limited.  The best way to play the game is hold the stylus in one hand and drag around the bottom screen to aim.  You shoot with L or R and reload by tapping the reload button on the bottom screen.  As shallow as this all sounds, I keep coming back to it over and over again in order to get all the gems, all the gold pieces and all the symbols.  So far, I’ve been able to get all the gold and all the gems.  I’m still searching for the symbols.

Visuals and Sound
The humor is evident from the get go, with the main title screen playing some very catchy elevator music.  I mean, it has no place in a pirate themed shooting game, but what the heck – let the fun fly! The chickens themselves are goofy looking as is the whole theme.  It’s obvious, this game doesn’t take itself seriously.  That’s alright though, it works in their favor.  As for the humor, there is even a chicken who breaks the fourth wall by tapping on your screen (accompanied by a nice glass tapping sound) trying to show you pieces of paper.  The visuals are all complimentary and keep in line with the beach/pirate/chicken theme.  Adding to the zaniness, you just might see a chicken pirate piloting a flying saucer, just maybe.  Unfortunately, there is not much in the way of sound, specifically music during gameplay.  There are some decent sound effects, but it’s a shame they decided to leave out any crazy music to enhance the experience.