Developer: OddChicken Studio
Publisher: Black Shell Media
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Dumb Chicken 2: One Way Out – Review
Many of us may know the expression: “like a chicken without a head”, this is how you may feel in some games. For a more tactical game like Dumb Chicken 2: One Way Out, we prefer opting for a “cold turkey” instead, since we will need our noggins to get our friends to safety. This game mixes fast paced gameplay with much needed stealth and puzzles to be solved.
Story
The adventure starts when a group of chickens are hanging out at a deserted cemetery and decide to take a selfie. During said photo shoot, they are kidnapped by a group of evil animals. Our hero Odd finds the dropped phone of his friends and sets off towards an adventure of getting back those dumb chickens. While Odd himself might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, he will eventually stumble upon some superhero chickens who decide to aid him in his quest. Overall there is no real story value, you just start with the information given in the intro and that’s it. This is sad because we would’ve like to see a real story line in this game that explains what happens and who is the mastermind behind all those kidnappings.
Graphics
Mere moments after booting up the game everything looks like it has been directly ported from a mobile version and the intro screen instantly confirms this, asking us to swipe to begin. Unless you have a touch screen monitor we must say that this is the first funny remnant of the mobile version. All the other menu screens and even the stage select screen are unchanged from its original version, this is not troublesome but feels like the developers did not take much effort into porting it to PC. There is an option to change graphic quality, but this doesn’t seem to affect anything.
The overall setting of the game is in the wee hours of the night, the map is well lit with various torches and camp fires. This ambient gives a feeling of rescue operations like in the movies of other games, where, under the veil of the night you move silently but efficiently to get the job done. The chickens are colorful while enemies tend to have a more evil aligned darker tone of skin.
Sound
Although many games try to be special with unique sounds and a firm soundtrack, Dumb Chicken 2 rather stays on the stealthy side with a calming menu tune and no in-game music. That is good since you will need all the silence there is to concentrate and to work out routes for rescue. Sound effects on other hand are well presented, giving that every enemy has their own sounds and items do not share same effects. However some may find this experience annoying since this causes a mute environment and we could prefer a nice stealth song like the old Sly Raccoon titles.
Gameplay
Dumb chicken 2 is a puzzle game that implies a mix of stealth and maze running. This mouthful means that you need to guide your chicken through a maze, complete puzzles on the way, while not being spotted by enemies. Although the word ‘puzzle’ might be a bit misplaced, the only thinking needed to be done is to find a safe patch to the switch that opens the doorway. Ensuring your rescue attempt won’t be as easy as you thought there will be spiked alleyways that pop up in a set trajectory; this means thinking out the right route is the safest option if you don’t want your feathery behind to end up like Swiss cheese.
Enemies all have a fixed pattern, which is fun for the old school fans since this means that the enemies are controlled by patterns and not by an AI. When spotted, enemies will go to your last known location; if you manage to keep out of view they will return to their original spot, being more watchful at first but will calm down eventually. Luckily the mazes are littered with items to use, and all these items represent a special ability of one of the characters. Dumb Chicken 2 lets us play with seven different characters, all with their own special ability that has unlimited use, albeit with a cooldown. Items and abilities alone won’t cut it, so it’s smart to hide in bushes. These bushes will keep you out of the field of view from enemies, and won’t alert them when you move around in them, but be sure to keep all your chickens in the bushes, a stray chick can be spotted and will alert the bad guy.
Bad guys come in all shapes and sizes. You have the wolf who runs around patrolling, the warthog that stays put on his place but is quick to intervene, the owl who has a huge field of view and is unaffected by items and the dung beetle, that just walk around like a mindless soldier.
The goal is to save all the chickens in each level, collect all the coins and not get spotted while doing so. Completing these three tasks will earn you a medal each; these medals are then needed to unlock new chapters: three in total. It is not mandatory to save all chickens, collect every coin or run through the level unseen, this will only limit the medals earned on that run. An interesting fact is that the chickens you save will run in a line behind you, having one of the enemies’ spot the line and hitting it will end in failure, reminding us of the old ‘Snake’ rule. Coins have no real use, only when collecting a hundred coins, you’ll receive a continue in case you are captured.
Playing the game can be done in three ways via controller, keyboard or mouse. Controlling the game with keyboard or controller is quite horrible, as the controls themselves feel static. While controller controls are slightly better, as they don’t experience the same input lag the keyboard has, it’s the mouse that wins this fight. Playing with the mouse is probably a direct port from ‘using your fingers’ for the original mobile title. When playing with the mouse, you’ll notice that the controls are quite smooth and simple.
Conclusion
Dumb Chicken 2: One Way Out is an interesting puzzle title that combines stealth while still adding some fun items to the mix. Too bad the game feels like a direct port from the mobile version without any tweaks or adjustments. If the developers had put in some more effort into making this a more pc friendly game, we would be sure that this title would score even better.
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