Some games, like Zelda, give you lots of toys that do lots of things. Some games, like the grindiest free-to-play shooters, give you lots of toys that all essentially do one thing. And a few games, such as Nitrome’s finger-licking Bomb Chicken, give you one toy that does lots of things. While too obese to jump, let alone fly, the game’s dumpy star has qualities most factory-farmed hens (and platform game characters) lack: her eggs explode a few seconds after they’re laid, and she can lay an endless number in swift succession.
Bombs aren’t celebrated for their versatility, but these ones have surprising range – range enough to pad out a few hours worth of sprightly, engrossing platform puzzles, all set in a dingy processing plant in the depths of a cartoon Latin American jungle. They can be rapid-fired out to create teetering, volatile stacks, punting Bomb Chicken up to a ledge or allowing her to flop across spike pits. You can kick the bombs into marauding bats or robot turrets, or lay them on cracked blocks to expose caches of blue crystal, the game’s sole collectible. They can be dropped on buttons to weigh them down while you run for a door, or even used as short-lived barriers against projectiles.
The catch throughout is that Bomb Chicken herself is not bomb-proof. To use the character’s signature ability is to immediately endanger her, obliging a frantic scramble for the next area as the level detonates behind you. This adds a pleasing, unfamiliar urgency to challenges that can feel like a Greatest Hits of props and setups from the likes of Shovel Knight and Spelunky (the latter’s dreaded homing ghosts put in an appearance, though you can at least daze them with explosives in Bomb Chicken). Later puzzles are pretty testing, requiring a cool head and quick reactions as you deal with problems like shockwaves travelling along goo slicks that extend around the chamber, or energy bolts blowing up your bombs ahead of schedule.
Source: Eurogamer Bomb Chicken review – a blast from the past that doesn't quite fill you up