The Cut Scene - Video Game Blog by Variety

Hail to the Chimp: "a chaotic jumble that doesn't play well"

I always had a tough time figuring out what "Hail to the Chimp" was in the previews I attended: a soft political satire framing a bunch of mini-games where anthropomorphic presidential candidate collect clams? Tres bizarre, but the guys from Gamecock and Wideload always seemed enthusiastic -- not just because they had been drinking -- and so I assumed there was probably more depth to the gameplay and actual humor than I was seeing.

Apparently not, according to Variety critic Leigh Alexander. As Leigh wrote on her own blog, "I like to think that I have the ability to see something good in everything... Alas, I can't remember the last time I disliked a game nearly this much." It' s a pretty brutal review, but her points are well backed up. Clams falling from the sky as players try to "hack the vote?" Greasy haired armadillo's with Mexican accents? Yeesh.

Here's a good excerpt from Leigh's review:

There's really nothing at all electoral about the minigames aside from stage names like "The Watergates" and "Political Machine." In many cases, the 16 different games overlap so much that it's hardly worth choosing one over the other -- all of them have a polar bear, sloth, hippo and other animal candidates competing to collect googly eyed clams, which inexplicably represent votes, or voters, or something like that.

And you can read the whole thing here.

GameCock's "Hail to the Chimp" furries invade L.A.

When you see a bunch of adults dressed up in furry hippopotamus, woodchuck, and polar bear costumes, it probably means one thing: GameCock is in town.

The indie publisher came to L.A. on Super Tuesday to promote “Hail to the Chimp,” its political-themed animal party game that comes out this spring. I found their bus parked behind the LA County Museum of Art, where they were doing a few last demos before preparing to crash the John McCain party at Hollywood bar The Cat and the Fiddle.

GameCock CEO Mike Wilson – wearing the same “Ski Iraq” t-shirt I saw him in at last summer’s E3, but looking a lot less plastered – showed off the game with two folks from developer Wideload. The gameplay is pretty basic – beat down your opponents and collect “clams” to win votes – but it’s quite ambitious in terms of on- and offline four-person competitions, high-end graphics, and a huge amount of satirical wrap-around content from its faux-news network, GRR news, hosted by a Woodchuck. A commercial for Oprah as a killer whale named Orcrah was a favorite of mine. (GRR has an extensive Web presence already. I particularly recommend the history of the network.). I’ll also admit I was surprised to find out the game uses Unreal Engine, since I think I’ve yet to see an Unreal game that didn’t feature guys with biceps bigger than my head blowing away everything in sight.

GameCock has apparently taken its game character furries to a few states in conjunction with caucuses/primaries in Iowa, South Carolina and now California.It’s mostly for promotion, obviously, but they are also running a voter registration site called Cock the Vote and are planning to do some more work with Rock the Vote – which seems like a good way to earn back karma after ruining Ken Levine’s acceptance speech at the Spike Video Game Awards.