Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg (2003)

Oh, Billy Hatcher. You and that giant egg of yours. This is one weird-ass game.

So this is a 3D platformer of sorts where you play as a boy dressed up like a chicken, and you roll around giant eggs. You roll the eggs over monsters (which are actually evil crows with transformation power), and they leave behind fruits in bubbles, which you then roll over to make your egg grow even bigger. This is useful for rolling into bigger enemies... And if the egg gets big enough you can press the "cock-a-doodle-doo!" button to make it hatch, and out pops a Pokemon reject that you can tell to, for example, shoot water at a fire blocking your path. Or maybe you'll get a winged hat that lets you double-jump. Your goal for regular levels is to find the golden egg, make it grow, hatch it, and the wise chicken elder inside will make the dark land turn bright again... and then you have to go get an item somewhere else to actually end the level, which is weird, but the whole game is weird.

Uh, I kind of love Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg? Like, I love how weird and bizarre and cheerful and fun it is? But unfortunately it's kind of just a bad game to actually play. It feels good to roll the eggs around, but anything else you do feels super janky. I hate platforming in this, and controlling the camera is a total crapshoot. Any level segments that require precision... thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers. Collision detection isn't great either, and for a game clearly aimed at younger audiences it's surprisingly tough and unforgiving at times! It's sad, but I was more often than not quite frustrated with this one.

We're in an era where a fair number of classic games get remade. What's unfortunate is that it's mostly games that were already good to begin with are getting remade... What would really make sense is to find games that had a ton of potential -- like Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg -- and remake those games. Give them the polish they need to really shine. Because as it is, this egg is way too runny for my tastes! It clearly needed a few more months, perhaps a year, on the frying pan before release. Alas, we live in a world where games gotta be rushed out the door, and if you aren't a runaway financial success then it's game over.

Sonic Team, give your poor chicken son a second chance. He's not a bad egg. And can you imagine a modern release in this online gaming, and Twitch and Youtube streaming era? The Vtubers would have an absolute field day with the hectic and wacky multiplayer mode.