Rocketbirds for PS Vita Launches on February 12th

Hello again! I’m happy to announce that Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken for PS Vita will be available very soon for download on PSN — February 12th, in fact!

The game is already available in Asia, where it was bundled with the PS Vita over Christmas, while it was also available exclusively to Asian PS Plus members. Since then, it became one of the top three most-downloaded PS Vita games on the PSN Top 10 PS3 and PS Vita Games in December list in Hong Kong, which is awesome!

In this game, you’ll take control of Hardboiled Chicken, the original Cock of War (a chicken so tough, he survived being boiled as a fetus), to lead the rebellion against the draconian penguin oppressors to overthrow their hold on Albatropolis! It’s an old-school cinematic action-adventure set in the Rocketbirds universe, a world filled with some despicable and often violent birds.

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The game sports jetpacking sections, stab-action in the Hardboiled difficulty setting, mind controlling brainbugs, some pretty nifty PS Vita controls, sweet music videos and an Ad-Hoc / Online cooperative mode with its own separate campaign!

There’s something tragic about the idea of flightless birds. So if they did grow to man-sized proportions, and they possessed the technical know-how, I’m sure they would build jetpacks and mini helicopter packs for aerial navigation and zeppelins with big screens in order to expunge their oppressive propaganda. We hope you’ll enjoy the game’s jetpacking stages!

The stab-action forms part of the Hardboiled difficulty setting, where Hardboiled gets limited ammo, a deagle and an uzi, but one very large knife. To do this correctly, you’ll need to use the weapons icon, which is located at the top right of PS Vita’s front touchscreen. Tapping the icon will auto-switch you between your last two weapons so you can quickly switch between the knife and your gun to close the gap between Hardboiled and the Penguin that’s trying to shoot you. You can also slide this icon to cycle between the weapons in your inventory, or open up your inventory with the d-pad. In Hardboiled mode, you’ll also need to defeat a different end boss than in Normal mode… but I feel I’ve given too much away now.

Everyone knows that Penguins are highly allergic to mind-controlling Brain bugs. If you obtain these, you can throw them at the feet of Penguins to make them do terrible – but useful – things for you.

The single player game takes you through 15 chapters of Penguin destruction. For PS Vita, we wired the screens to the built-in motion sensors, so you can tilt the detailed, non-scrolling screens at will.

In the tenth chapter of the co-op campaign, you and a friend can choose two of the six Dirty-Half-Dozen Budgie Commandos to go and rescue the General’s daughter, who has been bird-napped by Penguins in Albatropolis. Of course, you’ll be able to connect with a friend via Online or Ad-Hoc mode for cooperative play.

To thank the guys and gals who already own the PlayStation 3 version of the game, we will be offering a discount on the PS Vita version. You’ll also be able to unlock the new Sniper Budgie if you downloaded the PS3 demo, along with the new Agent-H Budgie (based on Herwig Maurer, the guys behind the sci-fi rock band responsible for all the music used in Rocketbirds) if you purchased the PS3 version of the game. Agent-H budgie is wielding a custom Photon Blaster – with sound effects created by H himself!