There has been at least one Crazy Chicken game on every console for more than a decade including 3DS and even DSi. Unfortunately, this light gun shooting gallery has not evolved, contains horribly broken gameplay, and has nothing “Xtreme” about it… unless you count the rage inducing frustration it can easily cause. This is nothing more than a Mario Party mini game trying to be a full console release.
Controlling a cursor, it is your job to shoot defenseless chickens as they mind their own business. The feathered fowl never attack the player so the only foe the player competes against is the timer. The goal is to earn the highest amount of points as possible before time expires but this is actually way more confusing than it sounds. And how are chickens flying? And how are they flying through the air wearing heavy helmets? Their upper body wing strength must be super hero strong! I also wonder how they pair with buffalo sauce.
There are only two buttons: reload and shoot. So you would think this would be a very simple game. Thing is, sometimes players will shoot something, like an object in the background, and be penalized with negative points. If you watch my stream embedded here in this article, you’ll notice my frustrating with the scoring system. Sometimes shooting that object will earn points. Sometimes it won’t be interactive at all. Sometimes it will subtract five points. Shooting the treasure chest seems like a good background item to shoot as it would be assumed that it would yield a reward. Nope, not here in Crazy Chicken Xtreme. Shooting that cool looking treasure actually lowers your score, for no reason, just because. You also lose points for reloading, you know, the one of two actions you perform every other second. So yeah, that is pretty awesome.
The hit detection also has issues and is inconsistent at best. There is no bonus for stringing combos. There are no super weapons outside of one mini gun that last for a few seconds and is actually worse than the standard peashooter. There are only three stages. The player needs to reload constantly. And the chicken dying sound effect is ear piecing. Seriously, it’s as if the devs researched the most annoying sound in the world, determined what that sound was, then felt the need to expose the player to this sound more than any other sound in the game. In fact, this game doesn’t even have music during gameplay.
It is easy to rip on a game with such poor quality control but it is harder to believe that such a miserable, nearly unplayable series has continued for so long.
Not As Good As: Link’s Crossbow Training
Don’t Forget About: Point Blank DS
Wait For It: a new Time Crisis
By: Zachary Gasiorowski, Editor in Chief myGamer.com
Twitter: @ZackGaz
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