 Review By: Jared Black |
Developer: | Avalanche Software |
| Publisher: | Buena Vista Games | |
| Genre: | Action Adventure | |
| ESRB: | Everyone | |
| # Of Players: | 1-2 | |
| Online Play: | No | |
| Accessories: | Nunchuk | |
| Buy Now: |   |
You’ve most likely played this game before. Three different heroes (helped out by a sidekick at their home base of course) fight to save the day, one on foot, one in the air, and one by tank or other heavy machinery. Each uses his or her talents to conquer one of 23 different missions, working as a team and acquiring a variety of upgrades and new abilities along the way. Yep, it’s a pretty standard action game formula, but Disney’s Chicken Little: Ace in Action executes it well enough to make it worthwhile.
Ace in Action is actually based on the short movie at the end of the original animated hit Chicken Little, with stylized characters representing the three main characters from that movie. Ace is the super hero version of the title character, a manly man…chicken voiced by Adam West and featuring mannerisms and cockiness rivaling that of Captain Kirk’s. Runt is the muscle-bound version of the fat, cowardly pig Runt, and likes to operate heavy machinery and blow things up. Abby is the “hot” version of Ugly Duckling, with 60’s era go-go clothes and a breathy voice to make Marilyn Monroe jealous. Finally, Mr. Fish is the sidekick that’s one part Spock and one part Sulu, offering assistance as the other three set out on each mission.
Where things get a little weird is the fact that you’re actually playing as Chicken Little himself, as he plays the game loosely based on action hero versions of their own lives. Thus, throughout the game you’ll not only hear quips from the heroes themselves, but also from Chicken Little and friends. The game is also interspersed with scenes of the four playing the game in the living room, talking about the game and poking fun at video game conventions. All in all, it’s a good setup that helps to keep the lighthearted mood you’d expect throughout the game, and lends itself well to the kind of humor you’d expect in a children’s game.
As I mentioned before, throughout the 23 missions you’ll control one of the three heroes. Ace takes things head-on on foot, using his blaster and upgrades to defeat wave after wave of foes. Each character also gains additional gadgets as the game progresses (granted by Mr. Fish), with Ace for example getting gadgets to fly great distances at special locations, walk up chicken wire walls, and lift heavy objects. Unfortunately Ace’s Prey-like wall-walking ability isn’t implemented very well, as several times it simply didn’t work at all for me (fortunately not in game-killing situations) or worked very erratically.
Abby and Runt’s gadgets are significantly more mundane, with Abby gaining one of several effects to use against certain types of enemies and Runt gaining a battering ram, hovering, and teleportation on certain pads (the last two of which happen automatically). As you’d expect, since you didn’t have these abilities early on, this means you’ll need to do some backtracking to get everything (adding artificial length to the 5 or 6 hour single-player mode).
In addition to Mr. Fish’s gadgets, various other abilities can be purchased by using Acornium collected throughout each level. These abilities include things like extra shields (life basically), faster/stronger weapons, new secondary weapons, etc. The game is setup so that you’ll most likely not be able to purchase everything the first time around, again providing extra motivation to replay missions and collect more Acornium.
Posted: 2007-01-24 16:45:23 PST