There is plenty of scope for this after all – we can do villains, weapons, levels, easter eggs – but to start things off Colin is going with something with a little more free range – chickens.

5. Crysis
Armed with a “nano suit” that features all the latest military gear imaginable, including an invisibility cloak and super-human strength, what better way to test all this than against a poor little clucker.

I think most owners of the game have at some point or another picked up a chicken and pelted it in the air – only to punch the poor thing back up as it descended back to the ground.

Of course,it should also be mentioned that the chickens could be used as weapons to off the various North Korean soldiers scattered throughout the game, as demonstrated below:

With the news that Crysis 2 is set in New York, I’m not counting my chickens at seeing, um, chickens in this series again.

4. The Secret of Monkey Island
Easily the most useful chicken in videogaming history, the rubber chicken that Guybrush Threepwood acquires in the Voodoo Lady’s shop quickly proved itself to be more than just a pointless joke object.

Upon discovering the item, Guybrush quips “A rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle – what possible use could that have?”.
As fate would have it, quite a few. The rubber chicken turns out to be the only form of transport between Melee and Hook islands, where using the rubber chicken with a flying fox allows Guybrush to zip between the two islands. Later on Guybrush again uses the rubber chicken in a recipe, as a substitute for a real one.

3. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Ever the controversial game, the real scandal of Modern Warfare 2 wasn’t the “No Russian” airport level, oh no – it was the fact that the game rewards the player with an achievement for killing 7 chickens in 10 seconds.

Heartless…

2. Fable 2
Slightly less sinister than Infinity Ward’s effort, Lionhead’s opus Fable 2 gave players the opportunity to punt all the chickens in Albion to their hearts content.

Oddly enough the developers also included the ability to unlock a chicken suit for your character. To unlock this, you’ll need to visit fable2.com and take part in a mini game.

The team were also quick to point out that the chickens have ‘reinforced feathers’ and can’t be killed – unless they’re kicked off a cliff.

1. The Legend of Zelda Series
Hell hath no fury like a vengeful poultry gang.

Unlike the defenceless chickens featured above, the fowl in the Zelda series are unlike any other. They are resourceful, determined and they look after their own.

Should you decide to stab one with your sword, it will call out in pain, and before you know it you are under assault by a wave chickens – think The Football Factory, but with feathers instead of butch cockneys.

And that concludes our top 5 list of chickens. We are still thinking of our next list, but if you’d like to suggest one, use the comment box below.

• Darksiders
• Army of Two: The 40th Day
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (again)
• Bayonetta (and how much she looks like Sarah Palin)
• Jet Set Radio
• Farenheit
• Dante’s Inferno
• The upcoming DLC for Resident Evil 5
• Mass Effect 2
• Final Fantasy XIII
• God of War 3

Enjoy

Among the other topics, were:

• Assassins Creed II
• Modern Warfare 2 (and “that level”)
• Avatar
• Super Mario Brothers Wii
• Lego Rock Band
• The Saboteur
• Doom
• Bayonetta
• MAG
• Mass Effect 2
• Medal of Honour (AKA - ”Modern Warfare 3″)
• Andy and Colin’s top 10 of 2009

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 – Xbox 360

As a critic, it’s my job to ignore the hype and see through to the core of the product, and never have I had to do that more than with Modern Warfare 2 (MW2), possibly the most hyped game of all time.

It seemed to have gone on for months: screenshot after screenshot, video after micro-blog, carefully drip-feeding the public a little MW2 at a time, forcing many other developers to rush games out or put them back till 2010 to avoid the crush of MW2 – it was a juggernaut of epic proportions.

And so here we are, the day of release: “The game of the decade” screams one review, “flawless” shouts another, but from my underground bunker near London, the best I can say of Modern Warfare 2 is ‘It’s pretty good.”

Yes, I’m not going to jump up and down over this game, because where other reviewers may have been taken in by Activision’s shiny PR stunts, I can see the truth of the experience – It’s more of Infinity Ward’s brilliance, but not anything especially new.

That’s not to say the game is bad, far from it. The singleplayer campaign is a brilliant, globe-trotting adventure ripped straight out of a Hollywood action flick, the multiplayer is a refined version of the addictive COD4 multiplayer, and the Spec Ops mode was a clever addition for those of us who felt short-changed by the lack of a co-op singleplayer campaign – it’s the complete package, but it’s nothing new.

Take the single player campaign, which commits the cardinal sin of gaming – It’s really short.

Despite critics and fans alike calling for a longer campaign, the developers have instead offered a series of missions full to the brim with action. Whether you’re hunting Russians in a blizzard and driving a snowmobile off a cliff in Siberia, storming an oil rig and a castle in Russia, launching missiles from a circling Predator drone or gunning down enemies by the dozen in the slums of Rio De Janiero, the campaign is a blast to play through. The problem though is that it’s only about 4 hours long – and that was on hardcore mode.

Another problem for me was the controversial scene which places you in the shoes of an undercover agent infiltrating a terrorist organisation about to commit an atrocity – which you have to take part in. If you chose not to skip the level (Infinity Ward being sure to offer you the chance to skip the level first) you have to gun down civilians in a level which could have been a cutscene. And though that particular section is the catalyst for the storyline, the overwhelming feeling I got was that Infinity Ward included it just to be controversial – especially as if you don’t skip the level, you have to shoot at least one civilian or the terrorist leader kills you – it’s ridiculous.

But that aside, and despite it’s disappointing length, the single player is great fun, filled with explosions and action, even if the plot itself is confusing, largely pointless and has a twist which seems just plain silly – Tom Clancy this ain’t.

The multiplayer, however, is a refined version of the multiplayer gameplay loved by all from COD4.

This time there are many more ways to customise your character – while you can still create 5 character classes, there are hundreds more weapons, symbols, titles and equipment choices available, and I took great pleasure in assembling a soldier for every occasion.

Another addition to the multiplayer is the evolution of the ‘killstreak reward’. Now, instead of UAV/Airstrike/Helicopter, you can choose what you receive when you get a certain number of kills, with my personal favourites being the C130 gunship (which you can use much like the gunnery level in COD4), the Predator missile, which is fired and steered remotely, and the sentry gun – an intelligent mounted weapon ideal for closing off avenues of attack – the limitless customisation options on offer is an excellent evolution of the perks system.

The multiplayer maps themselves are varied and fun to play on. While there are still a few levels culled from the single player campaign many of the maps are custom built, though there is a lack of any massive maps for sniping – the majority of them seem to be designed for short-range combat.

However, though the customisation is excellent and the gameplay as great as ever, the multiplayer itself remains largely unchanged from the COD4 formula. While there are a couple of interesting new additions, such as the third-person deathmatch (which plays a bit like the Rainbow Six series) the multiplayer follows the same formula as the game’s predecessor, and doesn’t offer anything new, other than addiction to its cleverly-designed gameplay once again, and the return of Prestige mode for gamers with too much time on their hands.

The Spec Ops mode is a brilliant addition to the series, though it seems to have been added later, probably to meet demands for more co-op gaming in the MW2 mix.

The mode places you and a friend (sadly it’s capped at 2 players) in a series of different encounters, like sniping enemies from afar, racing snowmobiles against the clock or covering each other in a fight to the death deep in Rio’s favelas.

It’s a surprisingly good mode when you’re playing with someone who takes the game seriously, and the short nature of the Spec Ops missions makes you want to try again and again to get a three-star ranking on each mission – not an easy thing to do with some of them, as the Call of Duty supply of rent-a-goons is seemingly endless.

That said, the developers have been careful to deal with one of the major flaws of the previous game, namely the constant respawning of enemies, which is no longer a problem – once you’ve cleared a room of opposition, they’re gone for good.

Graphically the game is quite the looker. The textures on the weapons and environments are stunning and the smoke from grenade explosions, muzzle flashes in the distance and animation of the soldiers themselves is spot on, continuing Infinity Ward’s brilliant eye for design in the last game.

The sound is also brilliant. Weapons and grenades sound meaty and satisfying, and the brutality of combat really hits home when you hear the bullets whizzing by, or the low rumble of a Harrier jet flying overhead as it mercilessly guns down your fellow soldiers – it’s all designed to suck you in, and it succeeds brilliantly.

I’d say that while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is a brilliant game, full to the brim with multiplayer action, globe-trotting antics and more set-pieces than you can shake a silenced M16 rifle at, the short single player campaign, inconsistent plot and pointless ‘controversial’ scene let it down somewhat. It’s definitely worth buying if you loved Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, just don’t expect a massive step in a new direction – especially as the end of the campaign makes it clear there will be a third part to Infinity Ward’s tale of treachery and deceit.

Score: 8.5/10

Good Stuff:
Brilliant multiplayer and Spec Ops modes
Globe-trotting and varied singleplayer campaign
Stunning graphics and gameplay

Not So Good Stuff
Pointlessly controversial at points
Poor plot, short storyline
Not the big change some were expecting
Party chat blocked in some multiplayer modes

Let it never be said that Activision don’t know how to market a game.

Easily the biggest release of this year, it has been reported that the game has sold well over a million copies on its first day of release in the UK, smashing the previous record that was held by Grand Theft Auto IV.

No doubt this figure was helped by the amount controversy that was caused by a certain mission where the gamer has to take part in the massacre of innocent civilians.

The Daily Mail jumped on the old band wagon and shortly after MP’s were once again discussing the violence of video games in Parliament and the effects they have on children, with a certain few conveniently forgetting that the game had an 18 certificate.

The huge anticipation of the game also led to a price war in the supermarkets, with 100′s of people queuing up to get their hands on a copy.

With some supermarkets charging as little as £25 for the game and the fact that its predecessor, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, held its price for over 2 years, it was no surprise that the general public wanted to take advantage of the offers.

The controversy didn’t end there, Infinity Ward had to release several patches to the Playstation 3 version. Initially there was a problem with the trophies and then a second patch was issued to fix a problem with the multiplayer options.

Never the less, the hype has died down for now and we should have a review for you shortly, courtesy of Andy Hemphill.

In the mean time, here is the launch trailer: