Chick Chick Boom Wii Review

WiiWare titles are an odd-commodity. Often ranking alongside the party games (read shovelware) you find in the Wii library. The vast majority of these titles are to put it bluntly (spoon-edged sharp) poop! So it is nice to be greeted with a game which threatens to change your perception of these formats of games.

 

chick chick BOOM! Is a breath of fresh air in this regard. Released online as a web-based game around three years ago. chick chick BOOM! was a time-limited title that was released during Easter period and after a period of time disappeared, until reappearing again recently. In this age of cheap party games, it’s easy to overlook and ignore many titles. So its a pleasure to report that chick chick BOOM! Is a game you will find yourself playing over and over. Which can only be a good thing, right?

Based on the original online version and from what I can gather, largely unchanged in its simple gameplay format. You have two teams of five chicks, taking control of one of the teams, you launch attacks with the sole aim of wiping out those mother-cluckers and maintaining your original stat-quo of five chicks. You have various items and weapons with which to defend your motley crew and attack the beaked enemies, success in this game depends on the successful utilising  items and launching special attacks.

Your tools of destruction in this game are narrowed down to bombs, weights (sofa’s, anvils etc) and plants (of the carnivorous kind). Select any of these and pointing using the wii-mote connect the dots on the screen which you would do well to trace as fast as your little arms will allow. Once you have finished your ‘trace’ you are free to launch your attack at any time. You can distract your opponents with smaller attacks and save your more damaging pushes for when they are dealing with something minor, for example chucking a bomb over the divide and then dropping a weight whilst they deal with the initial attack.

Since the original web-based version, things have changed. When ‘tracing’ the faster you do this, the more powerful your attack will be. Marked out of a 100 the closer you get to the maximum, the more attack bonuses come your way. In the form of a rotating target around the attack’s image; if you manage to get it on or around the immediacy of the centre then the attack gains some additions making the assault harder to avoid.

Knowing how to protect yourself is half the battle. You have the ability to draw a line across the battlefield, again created using the Wii-mote pointer. These are not infinite however and limited, so you must be vigilant in what you ‘draw’. You can use the line drawing ability to also punch holes in the enemies defence drawing a line that interrupts their line-drawing and thus they have to wait for their ink to recharge, this all comes down to skill and accurate timing adding a tension and frantic play to the proceedings.

Most of the time you take turns to battle to-and-fro as you do in most other strategy games, but there are instances when you can attack at the same time. Every so often in a battle, a stick of corn (corn-on-the-cob-man?) walks in the background and you can ‘point-n-shoot’ bits of corn off to replenish the energy of your chicks; a rapid fire element is thus added to the game. There is also the odd moment when a piñata drops into play landing on the divide between the two and falls on the side of whoever shoots it off quick enough, each piñata contains different items that aid play; such as helmets, health regeneration or increased defence capabilities.

Keep a close eye on what is going on above you and in the background, when other attacking tactics come into play, these can be triggered by both competitors. Lightening storms, Sea Monsters and UFO Spaceships appear throughout the game adding different element of attack to the proceedings. UFO spaceships hover above the two warring-factions and begin to ‘beam-up’ whoever loses the ‘trace-off’, whereas you have to draw a line into the ground to ‘earth’ the bolt of lightening should it come your way. Patience is key here, as striking too soon can cause you to miss your opportunity and be punished.

Though it is focused on being played in multiplayer, chick, chick, BOOM! has numerous modes and unlockables that can be played through in single-player. Time mode does exactly what it says on the tin, you have a time limit within which you must knock out as many of the competitors constantly replenishing chicks as possible, think Horde/Onslaught modes from other games and you are there. ‘Pro-Mode is the endless mode essentially, where you have you simply have to knock out as many chicks as possible before your original line-up is depleted.

Variety is given in the form of achievements, fifteen different teams of chicks can be unlocked and played with. This triples the original line-up of only five teams. However these different teams are only a visual aesthetic, offering nothing new in terms of abilities, but merely to differentiate between your character set.

Featuring a cute artsy style, cartoon-like in its appearance and with sharp, colourful and detailed vista’s, chick, chick, BOOM! Is a party-game worth picking up for the Wii. Purely because it does what it sets out to do, and does this wonderfully. It doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel, but what it does give you is refined and simply ‘pure-unadulterated fun’ and that is what you want when you want to have a quick game when you have friends round. But if you are a ‘solo-player’, it also has quite a bit for you to do too!

7 out of 10