Vicious Circle came out not too long ago and is an FPS co-op or betray game that has an interestingly hilarious concept. I dubbed it Vicious Chicken because in it there is a very large chicken that is quite vicious if it catches you. You have the choice of several mercenaries who have different abilities. It’s also required that you pick up the nuggets, the chicken drops them or you can shoot various containers holding them to eventually win the game. So you’re being chased by a chicken whose nuggets you need to gather while everyone else in the game is vying for the same nuggets. There’s a joke here, somewhere.
You can either work cooperatively, or not. Or you can act like you’re going to work cooperatively only to betray your teammates, steal their stuff and try to make it out alive. You must be careful as to when you betray someone though. Once they are dead, they respawn as some kind of strange ugly noodle monster called a “lil dipper” with extra powers and speed. Their goal is to track ‘live’ players down and take over their bodies or kill them as well. Don’t forget the chicken will kill you, and the chicken isn’t exactly slow either.
The live players collect power ups and have guns. While as a monster you lack these, it doesn’t make it easy to compete against a everything and everyone else in the game. It just makes the game a bit more hectic. So, if you can survive long enough to reach the required 75 nuggets, you will have to get to the exit to get out. All without being killed by the chicken or taken over by the lil dippers. Good luck, and yes it can be done. At the same time, if everyone dies prior to someone getting out no one wins and you start another round.
This game concept just makes me giggle. You’re running from a chicken. While chickens can obviously be extremely vicious and the fact that this one is several times the size of your player, it’s quite ironic that the saving grace is picking up what is effectively chicken poop. As for game play, it’s very twitch responsive much like Unreal Tournament. There are a myriad of power ups and different weapons to use for your success. The maps are large enough with lots of variations and traps to move around while small enough to force not being able to stay in one place for long. There are no camping options in this game except when evac zones show up, more due to game play and random chicken pathing than the maps themselves.
Overall it’s not my style of game, but it’s a pretty decent game for a quick time kill. With or without friends it can a fun or frustrating game. The concept was humorous, the artwork was good quality, game play wasn’t difficult. Unfortunately by late August player activity tanked and it’s impossible to play now. Steam charts shows a total of 5 players in the last 30 days. The game community has moved on and the game is dead. Not everything can be a hit all the time, and sometimes even decent games just don’t last long. Goodbye Vicious Chicken, you were funny while you lasted.
