Chicken Police: Into the HIVE! review

• Reviews by Serena Nelson
• Published:

A buzz-worthy addition to the film-noir anthropomorphic animal mystery series

There’s something fascinating about anthropomorphizing animals. People have been doing it ever since the time of ancient gods and monsters, all the way to modern-day art and animation. That includes many video games, such as The Wild Gentlemen’s World of Wilderness series. My interest was aroused by the studio’s third foray, Moses & Plato: Last Train to Clawville, so I wanted to go back and see how their earlier games played out. The Chicken Police titles are also visual novel-styled mysteries with the same sort of charm and animal-headed protagonists, and though they’re quite different in several key respects, any fan of the old pulpy black-and-white detective stories should find something to love in both. 

Chicken Police: Into the HIVE! takes place approximately three years after the events of its predecessor, Paint it RED! While it’s not strictly necessary to play the first game, it is highly recommended that you do so as the sequel references those events several times. The fall of a major criminal empire has brought on a gang war that is threatening the entire city of Clawville, and it’s up to our intrepid rooster duo Santino “Sonny” Featherland and Marty MacChicken to sort out this mess. Of course, in the same fashion as the noir stories from the mid-twentieth century that inspired this game, there’s more to it than that.

It starts out with Sonny receiving a late-night visitor to his apartment/workplace. She’s a praying mantis whose dead husband has disappeared, and she asks Sonny to investigate. Why anyone would want to dig up the body of a deceased insect is anyone’s guess, but Sonny takes the case and quickly calls up his partner. The search for clues takes the pair down a rabbit hole of politics and gang warfare. Nothing is as it seems on the surface, so just like in the developers’ other games, it’s up to our protagonists to follow the leads to the end.

Clawville has been ravaged both from within and potentially from without by forces that just want to see the world burn for their own ends. Apparently there was an assassination attempt on an anti-insect politician between the two Chicken Police games, and the entire city is on edge. All insects have been segregated in a district known as the Hive, which has been walled off, in an attempt to sweep these unwanted dregs of society under the rug by the rest of Clawville society. But trouble is brewing nonetheless, as the prejudice towards the chitinous and slimy has all but lit the fuse of this powder keg of rebellion and rioting.

But this is just the backstory of Into the HIVE. The actual investigation has our cop duo drive all over the city for what at first glance seems to be just a missing (albeit dead) persons case. Before long, this explodes into a larger conspiracy involving a meat substitute called M.E.A.T. (the acronym is never really explained), a gang power vacuum led by the nasty Golden Fang Clan and their baboon leader Mick Castle, and even some political intrigue pointing all the way to the top of the monarchy. This is most definitely a wild roller coaster ride that one would expect of the noir genre.

Speaking of noir, the artwork here is a beautiful mix of photorealistic backgrounds with lifelike character models that seamlessly blend animal heads on top of human bodies. Within the Hive, we are treated to grungy run-down locales like the flat of stag beetle private detective Frank Castellini, juxtaposed by swankier ones like bar called The Distant Light. In the city proper, some of the main areas you’ll visit include the beautifully decorated and aptly named theater The Ivory Palace during a dramatic sequence involving the gray wolf actor Cassidy Lupus, as well as several trips to the back-alley clinic run by a disgraced former police coroner. It all looks great in colour, but where it really shines is when using the black-and-white noir filter to more closely resemble an old monochrome film. I recommend using this filter, but it can be toggled on and off at any time from the options menu.

The developers used actual photos of animals and humans and spliced them together to look believable against the many static backdrops. In addition to our intrepid heroes, a couple notable examples are the hummingbird receptionist at the Clawville PD, Monica Rosen, and black widow spider Queen Zenaida, head of the Great Web syndicate in the Hive. It’s a bit jarring to see clean shaven arms and legs on otherwise hairy, scaly, or feathery beasts of the wild, but once I got used to the look it started feeling natural, if still slightly off-putting.

The sound work is superb as well. The music is full of jazzy tunes befitting the period and style, and the game is fully voiced with performances that convincingly convey the sense of an investigation in a city on the edge of war. Sonny sounds like you would expect of a grizzled old cop, while Mick has the air of a gangster from the thirties or forties. 

Chicken Police: Into the HIVE!

Genre:	Mystery
Presentation:	2D or 2.5D, Slideshow
Theme:	Crime solving, Noir, Animal
Perspective:	First-Person, Third-Person
Graphic Style:	Photorealism
Gameplay:	Investigative, Visual novel, Choices matter
Control:	Point-and-click
Game Length:	Long (more than 10 hours)
Action:	Arcade
Difficulty:	Low

To add to the animalistic nature of the series, the game treats us to several animal noises throughout, including our chicken cops’ clucking and the police department’s canine chief inspector Lucius Bloodboyle’s growling and barking at their insubordination. The music can drown out some of the spoken dialogue at the default audio settings, but the volume for each can be adjusted individually to your preference.

For the most part the game plays like a visual novel, as there’s a lot of dialogue between still portraits of characters in the foreground, and many topics pop up from time to time to question people about. However, there’s more to the experience than just clicking through conversations, with plenty for traditional adventure game fans to enjoy here as well. Moving between scenes involves the use of a map that can be accessed at almost any time, with the exception of indoor environments. Certain locations are greyed out with a lock icon that can’t be selected, but those that can are only ever a click away. There are a good number of hotspots wherever Sonny and Marty find themselves. These include both other characters and environmental elements like a vending machine in the police department’s foyer. All hotspots can be highlighted with the click of the magnifying glass icon on the upper-left corner.

You have an inventory where Sonny holds anything that could be important to his investigation, accessed via the briefcase icon in the top right of the screen. The interface works similarly to a standard point-and-click, allowing you to examine, combine, and even use these items in the environment. A lot of the inventory-related puzzles, such as trying to open up a can of M.E.A.T. so the owl doctor can determine its contents, are pretty much spelled out through dialogue and quests in Sonny’s journal. There is some trial-and-error required but the solutions are simple enough to figure out. 

Some of the clues and objects you acquire will be important to your case, while others are only needed for side quests. Secondary tasks aren’t necessary to reach the end of the game, but they add a lot of flavor and atmosphere to an already impressive major metropolitan backdrop. From preparing a birthday party for Bloodboyle to seeking out the stolen tail of the raccoon café owner Zipp H. Murphy, these small missions are either accomplished very quickly or are slowly revealed throughout the course of the five-chapter narrative. 

As a completionist, I of course tried my best to achieve every single optional goal. And doing so paid off in the long run, as I was treated to a special secret ending that felt like a fitting conclusion to an already epic tale. This is an additional short scene that pops up after the credits if every single goal Sonny marks in his journal is scratched off. It’s not needed but it helps to give some closure. Doing everything I could took me about 15 hours, but if all you want is to rush through and finish the main story, it could easily knock a few hours off your playthrough. I would still recommend taking the time to search every nook and cranny, as it’s worth it in the end.

In addition to inventory management and standard dialogue tree navigation in conversation, you need to perform several interrogations when a shield icon becomes clickable for specific characters. Just like in The Wild Gentlemen’s other titles, these have you trying to get information out of suspects and witnesses without pissing them off and them closing themselves off to you. Interrogations involve a protracted sequence of questions that either give positive or negative points after selecting one and seeing how the person reacts to it. It’s not hard to figure out how to sweet talk people into divulging information, but you’ve got to play both “good cop” and “bad cop” with them to get the best results. Fortunately, you can retry these as many times as you want until you get the full five stars for each.

There are also a handful of minigames, a couple of which are required to continue the story. In order to get the code phrase for the inner chamber of the Hive’s main bar, Sonny has to choose between a drinking game and a trivia contest. I had problems with the drinking game, as it was tricky to line up an arrow to bounce a shot off a bottle and one of the glasses, but answering the quiz questions, such as what the Hive’s nickname is, was a breeze. If you fail one, you can always either try it again or switch to the other option until you get the code. There’s also a card game and shooting gallery that are just there for fun. And they are fun, particularly if you’re a fan of card games like I am. 

Although Into the HIVE came out first, chronologically the game takes place after the events of Last Train to Clawville. We see Moses and Plato in their photorealistic glory, and their escapades have been immortalized in an embellished in-world novel written by the same person who chronicles the Chicken Police’s own cases. The game even mentions the growing unease between Clawville and snowy Stowonia. In fact, there’s a lot of political unrest here, and there are those using this to their advantage, though I won’t spoil the details.

Overall, this is a mystery worthy of the pulpy noir stories of old. It has the atmosphere and personality of the hard-boiled detective tales, but it doesn’t always take itself too seriously. There are moments of levity, particularly with the corny animal jokes tossed around occasionally, but in between is a gripping tale of conspiracy and intrigue, keeping you on your toes the entire way. You won’t have to actually solve the case yourself, merely guide Sonny and Marty towards a final resolution, but it’s pretty easy to pick up on the twists and turns the narrative throws at you.

Final Verdict

This compelling noir tale of conspiracies and gang warfare makes Chicken Police: Into the HIVE! a great addition to the World of Wilderness saga. As a visual novel with adventure game elements, the gameplay has something for fans of both genres to enjoy. Added all up, the experience left me wanting to see more of the fowl detective duo. But if game is to be their last, it is a fitting end to their story with an emotional roller coaster that has them in danger at every turn a dark alley. There isn’t much challenge and the insects are unsettling, but if you can suspend disbelief in a city full of anthropomorphic animal-headed characters, there’s a great detective noir story here to enjoy.

Serena played Chicken Police: Into the HIVE! on PC using a review code provided by the game's publisher.