Storylines in games these days are getting a little bit repetitive. Most of them are all about lost loves being chased by their other halves in a desperate bid to save them, or maybe something to do with WWII or modern day terrorism, perhaps. The point I’m trying to make is that all games these days seem to follow a set path when it comes to weaving a tale to entice people to buy their wares and hopefully keep them gripped. I wonder what Gamecock and Wide Load were thinking when they came up with the basis for Hail to the Chimp.
The premise is pretty much that humans are replaced by animals and it’s the run up to the presidency and the candidates are a group of strange looking, bull talking individuals who will do anything to become the next president of the USA (presuming that will be the United States of Animals). Ten different species ranging from a jellyfish who you can’t understand to a squid who is a master of martial arts are desperate for your vote as you help them through multiple levels of clam collecting and signpost changing.
Hail to the Chimp is the first major piece of work from the guys behind Stubbs the Zombie and it couldn’t be further away from their original calling, which was a part of the Bungie team when Halo was starting to make a name for itself. This game sides more towards the Mario Party/Crash Bash side of things and although it works ok with a single combatant, it’s really meant to be played either on or offline with another 3 people. Now, there aren’t a lot of these about on either PS3 or Xbox 360, so it should be a creditable addition to the PSN downloadable market, or at least that was the theory.
It’s not that it doesn’t have its good points though it has to be said. The humour in the set pieces, namely the GRR news Sound bites and fake ads, which do manage to raise a genuine chuckle when you hear them. The only fear would be that once the initial originality laugh has been and gone that the 3rd or 4th time would begin to grate, which is a shame, as some of these are really rather funny. You can unlock more of these as time goes on, but your desire to do this all relies on how Hail to the Chimp plays.
It’s not too bad in a playability sense, but where it falls down, quite badly to be honest, is in the variety of what it offers. There may be many different types of game, but they are all based around the same basic principal of collecting clams, regardless of how much you try and sugar coat it. This starts a chain reaction where initial fun leads to niggling annoyance and then from there to boredom before you eventually just don’t want to put anything into it, either emotionally or physically.
It has a nice cel shaded look to the game and everything is very colourful and there are enough moving parts in each level to take away that monotony for a while. I’ve been a fan of this type of look for a while now and I feel it works well in a lot of things, this included. It’s just a shame that it’s part of a game with such a lack of actual character and more importantly depth. It’s a victim of it’s own idea in a way because even though it’s a great looking title for the kids, they won’t really grasp the undertones of the more adult humour and political subject matter hidden within, which HTTC needs to be a full package.
Sound wise is where it delivers a decent performance. The music is upbeat and quirky and with the vocals having a real comedic and in some cases rather professional feel to it you can be seen to believe a lot of effort went into this to make it funny and in part that is why a lot of the video cut scenes are just that. The sound effects do their job, but they’re lost in the wave of one liners and tunes that you don’t really notice them.
There is an online mode to it also, which does manage to keep the vultures away for a little while, but once you have exhausted all the originality and variety the player themselves can muster it is then that the aforementioned boredom really begins to set in. Once that starts to happen there is no hope of you wanting to play this that often, regardless of the amount of spare time you have. Mario Party does this better with more mini games and much better choice, as does Crash Bash and many other party games of this style. Ok, some of them may not have the comedic value of Hail to the Chimp, but they will last you longer in the long run. The price doesn’t really help its case a lot either. At £11.99 it is a fair bit of money to pay out for something like this. You could pick up Battlefield 1943, as well as many others, for a bit less and get much more enjoyment out of it.
It’s a little unfortunate that this game fails to deliver what some had hoped it would, especially when you remember how good Stubbs the Zombie actually was. There is a definite feeling of missed opportunity and failing promise here and you can only hope Wide Load will learn from this and hopefully produce something a bit better. As it stands though it just sits 50/50 in the polls. At least there’s one thing you can say about it and that is it does have a lot in common with politicians. Both of them aim to deliver so much when they’re desperate to get into the hot seat, but usually fall short once they get there.
VideogameUK verdict: 6.5/10
