Time to have another 'feature month', dedicating our Weekly Penguin to a very specific penguins. This time it is the most villainous kind, the villains of a video game franchise Rocketbirds by Ratloop Asia.

This is seriously one of my all time fave modern platformer series and I honestly don't have any idea why it has taken me this long to cover them here.

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The first one is Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicken. Originally released back in 2011, the game stars Hardboiled, a battle-scarred super-soldier rooster on a quest to overthrow iL Putzi and his evil penguin regime controlling the world. On his quest, Hardboiled joins the Resistance and travels into the heart of Albatropolis to assassinate Putzi – in the between facing iL Putzi's right-hand albatros Brno and a whole army of penguins.

The game is a 2D platformer with a gorgeous and crisp art style. This first Rocketbirds isn't run n' gun title like our TAGAP, instead landing somewhere between Metal Slug and Flashback. It lets you blast away at your hearts content with loads of guns, but is more methodical about it. You can only shoot horizontally and use of cover is encouraged, especially on higher difficulties. A lot of the game also involves traversing puzzles, involving classic keycards and even mind-controlling bugs you can throw as grenades.

That is, until the game switches to the 'rocket' part of 'Rocketbirds'. In several sections you use a rocket strapped to your back in aerial fights with penguins doing the same - who said penguins don't fly? Have you ever played the freeware DOS classic AUTS? Well think that, but with HD graphics involving a chicken dogfighting flying penguins.

Penguins make great villains, always have. It's the contrast of having something almost human like but cute and clumsy that is also the most evil thing in whatever the universe they inhabit. However, Rocketbirds: Hardboiled Chicked goes HARD on both fronts. The penguins are goofy to the point of slapstick, but are also a mirror image of National Socialist German Workers' Party circa 1933. I'm not joking; when it comes to goofy penguin games, if TAGAP is like Duke Nukem 3D, then this first Rocketbirds is Wolfenstein: The New Order.

It's not just the totalitarian imagery borrowed. Some stuff, especially the torture chambers segment, go really dark – and that's before we get into Hardboiled being forced into being a child soldier / test subject. I don't think it is too much, mind. It gives the whole resistance tons more emotional punch in what could've otherwise been just a another silly cartoon animal villain of the week.

Being a violent 2D action shooter featuring penguins isn't the only thing Rocketbirds has in common with TAGAP, though. As it happens, Rocketbirds started out as a free game Rocketbirds: Revolution! released in 2009. You can still play it at the official Rocketbirds website, but be aware that it requires the ancient piece of technology known as Flash.

If you've somehow missed this game and love 2D platformer shooters with penguins – which I guess many of folks visiting here do – I recommend giving the series a go!

This first game is available on almost all the platforms, most recently having been ported to PS4 in 2020. I originally got and played it on Xbox 360, but it was a digital only release. When Limited Run Games announced the PSVita version, I had to grab it to insaciate my penguin AND game collector self. For context, I've never owned a Vita. About a year later, PS4 version became available via LRG, so I naturally got it as well.