Fat Chicken (PC) Review

The purpose? To make lots of dough. How? Well, how else? By selling chicken wings, pork chops and juicy beef steaks. Before doing so, however, livestock animals must be taken care of, in order to make high quality meat chunks… and, of course, money. Instead of actual farmers, though, everything is done by towers that can be placed in the map, towers that "shoot" food, water and even growth hormones and antibiotics at the passing chickens, pigs and cows.

Each level starts with a small a sum of money that the player must use to do a bit of basic tower building. After that, the animals will start following a road that starts from a comfortable barn and leads to a slightly less comfortable place, before being turned into chow. Even at the beginning, where the only problem will be keeping livestock well-fed and plumpy, Fat Chicken turns out to be a pleasantly challenging experience, requiring a decent amount of strategic thinking if wanting to get the best out of each wave of marching dinner.

Positioning towers can be a tricky business. Place a "feeder" too close to the starting line and it loses its value, place it too far ahead and those tasty little beasts will become less tasty, or even die. Balance is also very important, so while it's bad when livestock die from hunger, it's even worse when they overeat and blow up! A lot of annoying trial-and-error is needed to get accustomed to the game mechanics, but in a way that's actually part of the fun here.

New tools and problems are introduced in each level, adding both to the fun and challenge factor. The need for better planning increases, because after the simple task of feeding some chickens, there is a need to take care of pigs and cows, diseases that spread out, tree-hugging protesters and even UFOs! Things can soon get boring, however, simply because the new stuff is rarely really new. One example: why have both hormone and feeding towers, as well as watering and genet-O ones, when all of them pretty much do the same thing? It's an illusion of diversity when in reality there isn't any.

Concerning the replay value, there is both good and bad news. The good? Up to three stars can be given on the progress made in a level, a task that is thankfully not a walk in the park. Even better, these have a serious practical value, since they can be used to buy upgrades for the various tools of the trade. Unfortunately, there is little room for experimentation and alternative strategies, especially when it comes to tower placement where things are somewhat "black or white." This keeps people from trying a level more than once, thus lowering the overall replay value.

The few pieces of text poke fun at corporate greed, as well as the uber-environmentalist movement. Fortunately, it's not preachy or anything, since it just tries to create a fun atmosphere. This certainly gives character to the whole experience, but that can't hide the main problem. Fat Chicken claims to be a "reverse" tower defence strategy, yet that end ups just being a small gimmick whose charm soon fades out. Sure, it's not bad and it's entertaining while it lasts… yet it just doesn't last that long.