Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken flies onto PS Vita next week

Hi, my name is Sian Yue Tan and I’m happy to announce that Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken for PlayStation Vita will be available very soon indeed – 13th February.

The game is already available in Asia, where it was bundled with the PS Vita over Christmas. Since then, it became one of the top three downloadable PS Vita games for December in Hong Kong, which is awesome!

In this game, you’ll take control of Hardboiled Chicken, the original Cock of War (a chicken so tough, he survived being boiled as a fetus), to lead the rebellion against the draconian penguin oppressors to overthrow their hold on Albatropolis!

It’s an old-school cinematic action adventure set in the Rocketbirds universe, a world filled with some despicable and often violent birds.

The game sports jetpacking sections, Stab-Action in the Hardboiled Difficulty setting, mind controlling Brainbugs, some pretty nifty PS Vita controls, sweet music videos and an ad-hoc/online co-operative mode with its own separate campaign!

There’s something tragic about flightless birds, so, if they did grow to man-sized proportions and had the brains to come up with some tech, they would – I’m sure of it – make jetpacks. That and Zeppelins – with big screens, so that they can expunge their oppressive propaganda – would probably be some of the first things on their list. And mini helicopter packs. So, three things.

The Stab-Action forms part of the Hardboiled difficulty setting, where Hardboiled gets limited ammo, a deagle and an uzi, but one very large knife to complete the game with.

To do this right, you’ll need to use the weapons icon, which is located at the top right of the touchscreen. Tapping the icon will auto-switch you between your last two weapons so you can quickly switch between the knife and your gun to close the gap between Hardboiled and the Penguin that’s trying to shoot you.

You can also slide this icon to cycle between the weapons in your inventory, or open up your inventory with the D-Pad. In Hardboiled mode, you’ll also need to defeat a different end boss than in Normal mode, but I feel I’ve given away much too much now.

The single player game takes you through 15 chapters of full-res Penguin destruction with music video storytelling – and for the PS Vita, we wired the screens to the built-in motion sensors, so you can counter-tilt the detailed, non-scrolling screens at will – and it looks great.

And finally, in the 10-chapter co-op campaign you and a friend can choose two of the six Dirty-Half-Dozen Budgie Commandos to go and rescue the General’s daughter, who has been bird-napped by Penguins in Albatropolis. To better fit with the portable nature of the game, you’ll be able to connect with a friend via online or ad-hoc mode for cooperative play.

On a final note, to thank the guys and gals who already own the PlayStation 3 version of the game, we will be offering a special discount when buying the new PS Vita version – more news on this soon.

On top of this, you’ll also be able to unlock the new Sniper Budgie, if you downloaded the PS3 demo, and unlock the new Agent-H Budgie, if you purchased the PS3 version of the game (yes, Agent-H Budgie is based on the talented Herwig Maurer, the guy behind New World Revolution, that sci-fi rock band responsible for all the music used in Rocketbirds). Agent-H budgie is wielding a custom Photon Blaster – with sound effects created by H himself!

Also, we are working on a Plus deal when the game launches – stay tuned!