Thursday, 17 March 2016 00:00

Ultimate Chicken Horse Review

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If you’re looking for a title to break up a friendship, look no further!

Ultimate Chicken Horse is as interesting of a concept as its name. It’s a party game where you can put your level building skills up against 1 - 3 other friends to see who is the most intuitive or the most ruthless. There’s nothing like placing obstacles randomly throughout the level to cause more distress to your “friends”. This is the type of entertainment that will make or break friendships. Play at your own risk!

Ultimate Chicken Horse is actually a very entertaining as a party game. When you first get into Ultimate Chicken Horse, you begin by choosing from 1 of 4 characters (a chicken, horse, sheep, or raccoon). From there you have a couple options to choose from: you can compete in a party mode or a creative mode. The creative mode allows you access to the whole catalog of items to place on, whereas party mode only allows the use of 4 random items per level (much more challenging). You only have 1 of 2 levels to choose from (rooftops or farm), so the backdrops are pretty limited. From there, the fun really begins. In order to win the match, you have to score more points than your opponent. You score points by finishing the level successfully, avoiding traps, and collecting coins. The first to pass the win mark or the person who has the most points by the time all the turns have run out wins. If everyone in the group completes the level (the level is “too easy”) or if everyone dies, then no one is awarded points.

The idea is simple enough, but the strategy and creativity is what really makes Ultimate Chicken Horse work. In the beginning of a turn, each member of the party is allowed to choose and place any one item on the map. Some of the items are pretty basic (from stairs to platforms to rotating boxes), while others add more challenge and are even goofy (hockey posts that shoot pucks, cross bows, fire hydrants for boosts into the air, etc.). You can also combine any items together by sticking them with honey to each other. When you select an item, the map turns into a grid, making placement of items really simple. After each of the items is placed, the race begins. After the level is complete, the scores are tallied up depending on who completed the level or not. As each level is completed, each member continues to add new pieces to the map, making it more and more complicated. This is where the really strategy comes into play. The real challenge of Ultimate Chicken Horse comes from the fact that the pieces are placed randomly by you and your opponents, so the levels are random every time you play. You have to decide whether to place pieces to stop your opponent from progressing, make it easier for you to finish the level, or to blow up inconveniently placed pieces. If you play your pieces right, you can turn a loss into a strong comeback.

From dodging blades to avoiding hockey pucks Ultimate Chicken Horse gets very challenging and exciting.

Despite all the positives this game offered, I feel it wasn’t enough to combat the negatives. Having only 2 levels available really does limit the variety of gameplay. The music is a sort of basic funky beat, but each level has the same song on repeat - it gets old fast. The graphics are cartoonish and simple, but it definitely fits with the feel of Ultimate Chicken Horse so no real qualms there. One of the things that was bothersome to me is the fact that there’s no true single player. You can share one controller between multiple people, but if you’re playing solo, you have to control at least 2 characters. Unfortunately, Ultimate Chicken Horse is literally unplayable unless you have a controller hooked up. It’s not nearly as fun when you’re playing against yourself. There is an online beta running, but it looks like you can only link directly with friends through an IP port. As far as connectivity problems go, I wasn’t able to open the client through Steam on Windows 10 for the first 3 days I had it, but they seemed to have solved that issue.

Ultimate Chicken Horse is a simple but exciting party game. It will bring humor and frustration to any friends willing to put their friendship on the line. Currently priced at $14.99 (a little steep, to be honest) on Steam, Ultimate Chicken Horse is available now, but I would wait until they at least lowered the price and added more content.

7

The Verdict

Ultimate Chicken Horse is a simple but exciting party game. It will bring humor and frustration to any friends willing to put their friendship on the line.

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Zakk Flask

Since the days of NES, Zakk has had a love/hate relationship with video games (damn you Ghost N Goblins!). He enjoys a large spectrum of gaming, and will play almost anything that's thrown his way. A guitarist, freelance writer, avid reader, sports fanatic (Go Pack GO!), and overall adventurist he always finds time to enjoy the little things in life. When he's not plugging away in front of a computer he likes to go adventure outside on hikes or in downtown Denver. Life's a garden, dig it - Joe Dirt

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