Chicken Invaders

This hilarious, ridiculous, entertaining game is a takeoff on the classic old Space Invaders game. The one big difference: Instead of shooting down rows of invading space ships, you have to shoot down rows of invading chickens. As you shoot them down they bombard you with their own weapons (drumsticks and eggs in the lower levels, with the addition of chicken feathers at higher levels). Each wave of marauding chickens is increasingly dangerous, and on some levels you also have to fend off asteroids and giant monster chickens.

This throwback game is as simple as it gets, and that's the whole point. Move your spaceship with the arrow keys, shoot your weapon by pressing the spacebar--that's all you need to know. Everything about the game is entertaining and campy, beginning with Strauss's "Thus Spoke Zarathrustra" theme made famous by 2001: A Space Odyssey and majestic text telling you the back story of the game, much like Star Wars began. This game won't entertain you for an extended amount of time, but when you've got a spare ten minutes, it can't be beat.

--Preston Gralla