We step into a murder mystery with Chicken Police, a classic point and click adventure with an original and iconic art style.
On November 5, a wild story of love, death, chickens and redemption was released for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch with Chicken Police: Paint it RED! A visual novel that undoubtedly enhances a police noir adventure with an exciting and rich story with a classic turn of the 1940s film noir and where the protagonists here will not be humans, but animals. Developed by The Wild Gentlemen and published by HandyGames, this indie video game has made its way onto many computers and has earned the admiration and enthusiasm of many gamers. With more than 8 hours of professional dubbing for the 26 characters it contains, with a carefully elaborated world, unique and particularly full of black and white, in addition to achieving an immersive experience, it will help us to investigate and find out the best kept secret of this big police case.
This narrative adventure with its gameplay system and its mystery may make you doubt more than once, but don’t let anyone fool you because here we are the investigators. What happened? Why us? Who tells the truth? Who wants to cheat us? Find all these answers and recover some of the lost color of the city of Clawville.
Los Crestectives and Clawville: a story to recover a friendship
“Dead men weigh more than broken hearts”, a phrase that begins what will be a most exciting story with our Crestectives, but who are they? They are two roosters with few feathers and that on more than one occasion their friendship has been tarnished by the decisions they have been making. They are Sonny Featherland and Marty MacChicken, detectives who managed to be a legendary duo and that no case could with both. But it’s been almost a decade of all that and time has not treated them very well. Counting his 121 days until retirement, investigator Sonny is now half as legendary as he was in his day, he is a sunken bird, half alcoholic and away from the police force, while Marty, continues to cling to that image of a superstar cop that he is no longer able to maintain what has turned him into a rooster with no respect for authority and with his finger on the trigger continuously. Their friendship ended in a near-deadly feud between them and they haven’t spoken since, but it’s time to see Sonny and Marty in action again, as they will be forced to work together again in the strangest case. they have ever seen.
Everything revolves around Clawville, a city set in Los Angeles in the 1940s, and which was built in an idyllic place, where prey and predators could live in peace and harmony. But the years do not pass in vain and this city has gradually become the blackest hole in all of Nature. Chicken Police presents us with a detective story, with an innocent woman looking for Sonny and this is how she comes to our office to ask us for help because she needs us to investigate some threats towards her friend, Natasha Catzenko, a seductive and fatal cat from the best movies film noir. This feline is known in the city for her role as a singer in the most important club in the area, Czar Club and she is also the girlfriend of one of the most famous gangsters, Ibn Wessler. As soon as this case is put in his hands, Sonny doesn’t waste a minute looking for his ex-partner Marty and asking for his help in solving this whole plot.
The whole story will be told through narration and abundant dialogue with satirical touches, which bring together elements of graphic novels and classic adventure games. The investigation will take our detective duo to explore the city of Clawville, from top to bottom, in more than 30 scenarios to visit and that will change several times throughout history, these scenes are: the main scenes, which will be necessary to advance the plot; limited scenes, which are only open for a specific period determined by the progress of the main story; and closed scenes, those that we can no longer access at that time. Our passage through this great adventure is subject to a totally linear investigation, without the possibility of discovering things in a different order, although with certain details that cannot be overlooked. This is why it will be difficult to get stuck and the story will have a good fluidity.
By questioning you will go much further, but first prioritize trust
The game promotes that classic point and click, so we will have to interact with everything that surrounds us, and it will encourage us to be observing every detail around us. As good detectives that we are our main tool are questions and persuasion, that is why until we achieve sufficient confidence, the story will not go deeper and we will not be able to carry out any interrogation. As we already mentioned there will be 26 characters, each one with a very permeated personality, in addition to having a mystery that will make us doubt each one of them and with the originality of having a personality of the animal they represent. Once we achieve some confidence and have achieved a chronicle of significant and insignificant details, the option to ask will be unlocked. This will allow us to ask questions about a list of topics related to what we have heard, talked about and those clues we have managed to discover. After this list of questions, some characters will let us carry out an official interrogation by the Crestectives.
The system that he presents as an interrogation is the most complete, being able to create frivolous, cunning questions and with a multitude of possibility to discover more about the other person. All of this will help us feel more detective than ever. It will open as a kind of minigame where we will take control from Sonny and there will be two sections: the questions section and the information we have on the subject we are questioning. To discover and know the correct questions, we will have to take into account a brief description of the subject, his impressions and above all, the detectimeter. This last element will be crucial to know if the interrogation is going in the right direction or, on the contrary, our ability as a detective is not entirely good. For example, if one is shy we will need to ask more persuasive questions, on the other hand if he is overprotective and with the capacity to lie, we will be able to ask much more direct questions. Failing the questioning is easy if we focus on being constantly belligerent or insulting, or if our series of questions are misdirecting and straying from the investigation.
A notebook full of information that will help you
But of course, to get to have certain information it will be thanks to the great constant search that we do and all the information that we begin to collect. Every location that we are going to go to will have a lot of research items as well as collectibles, so take a good look at every corner and every gap. It will all consist of searching and searching for more clues and in this way storing in our inventory everything that Sonny comes to consider important and will reveal both new lines of dialogue with the characters, as well as new locations. When we have several clues, it gives us the option of opening a new minigame to link together everything we have achieved and establish a greater depth of the evidence we have, in this way we will be able to clarify everything that is happening and solve the puzzle much easier . It’s a nice visual representation of a detective’s work. It will not be the only way to break up the conversations, there will also be other types of minigames such as the shooting gallery or a shooting while we are driving.
All this information will not be in our head, but we will have to make use of a notebook to keep everything that helps us to solve the case. This notebook is very important to Sonny and is that in its different sections you can see all the progress we are making. All the clues that we find and get to know will be included here, the places we have to travel to to continue investigating, a codex that will be our own annotations and information on each subject we meet. Right next to said notebook, our briefcase will open showing us all the items that we have been collecting or that have been given to us, although it does not have any other functionality.
Black and white with jazzy touches
In the world of Chicken Police, humans are exchanged for animals and black and white for color, undoubtedly a strange and shocking visual display, but one that draws attention. The entire cast of characters comes to life using avatars, human bodies with animal heads, with real photographs of humans and flooded in photorealistic 3D backgrounds. The use of animal heads is rare, but it ends up being charming and you will get used to it. Undoubtedly, this video game wants to give us an unparalleled cinematographic experience inspired by classic black film films such as The Eternal Dream, Perdition or Gilda, as well as games such as Grim Fandango, Snatcher or L.A. I will not go. Our entire environment becomes blurred and focused with action and dialogue, creating an environment with life and with very realistic touches.
However, the most remarkable thing about the whole game is its sound and its dubbing, all these characters would not come to life if it were not for the outstanding voice actors who have worked on it. For example, there will be professionals who have lent their voices to games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Wharhammer: End Times. Without finishing first, we must point out the great soundtrack that it presents, with a score with touches of jazz that will take us to those gangster films and that genre of film noir. We can enjoy this soundtrack at all times, it even gives us the opportunity to listen to a whole repertoire on a jukebox that we will find in one of the game’s stages.
CONCLUSION
Chicken Police: Paint it RED !, is an indie game delight, with a very original style, a perfect soundtrack and some of the most charismatic characters. It is very well written, it has a story that will captivate you and its gameplay is aimed at telling the whole plot, as well as presenting very complete lines of dialogue and with a perfect translation into Spanish. However, its history is totally linear so there will be no big surprises and durability falls short, since in 7 hours you can complete the game. I hope this last means that they will generate some sequels and we can continue enjoying the Crestectives and this mysterious universe.
THE BEST
- A good plot that gets you hooked.
- The interrogation system.
- His original and iconic art style.
- Jazz dubbing and soundtrack.
WORST
- Very short durability.
- Fully linear with no surprises.
Very good
A game with a remarkable finish that we will enjoy and remember. A good buy, highly recommended for lovers of the genre. It is well cared for at all levels.
