Played through SQ3 WITHOUT playing Astro Chicken and discovering the encoded distress message? Roger will go through the game having no idea why he's doing what he's doing

Yep, did it pretty frequently when I was a kid. See, I was a kid who had zero fine motor skills (a la that "warning" at the start of the Monolith Burger sequence in SQ4) which made it next to impossible for me to play Astro Chicken. It's entirely possible to beat the game without even looking at the Astro Chicken cabinet, and yes, it does make you quite aware that you're playing a game.

This is a late response, but yes ;). Like the poster above, I had a hard time with the Astro Chicken game when I was little, so I usually skipped it, unless I was feeling particularly patient that day. It doesn't make the game less enjoyable, but of course, the storyline makes much less sense if you skip it ;).

It still doesn't make sense that the game's whole plot is basically hidden inside what amounts to an easter egg. ;)

. When I played SQ3 the first time, I played the Astro Chicken game exactly ONE time, crashed and burned three times within the space of 20 seconds, and headed straight for the Mallard. I had no idea why I was suddenly rescuing The Two Guys, but I didn't care. ;)

Troels, Haha! I can't believe how horrible you are with Astro Chicken. You suck! (Y)

Troels, Haha! I can't believe how horrible you are with Astro Chicken. You suck! (Y)

That game fucking cheats, man! :D All right, you do better. Seriously, film yourself doing better. We'll call it The Astro Chicken Challenge. The prize: the friggin' honor! I'll put it on the G+ page. As if you haven't got enough happening around you.

Pfft. Astro Chicken isn't hard at all once you understand how it works - it's a lot like that Lunar Lander game, only with more feathers. You have to use a light touch, like a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money - take your time to line yourself up properly and take the descent niiiiiice and easy. ;) I'd record a demonstration, but I have no video capture software. Grr.

 

But yeah, I'm in the same boat as Troels, albeit for different reasons - while I never had any trouble with Astro Chicken, I didn't realize when I first played the game as a kid that the game had any *purpose* beyond simply being an entertaining diversion. It was there, and it was fun, but I didn't play it long enough to get the secret code screen - instead, I just moved on to Ortega, mostly because it was the only planet I hadn't explored yet.

 

I vividly recall one particular quote from this 'alternate' playthrough - when Roger looks through the survey scope at the shield generator on Ortega, the narrator posits that the device (which Roger doesn't recognize because he didn't get the secret message) might be "some sort of TV transmitter, beaming pay-per-view wrestling to the stars". :lol:

Pfft. Astro Chicken isn't hard at all once you understand how it works - it's a lot like that Lunar Lander game, only with more feathers. You have to use a light touch, like a guy who burns down a bar for the insurance money -

Yes, if you make it look like an electrical thing.

 

(Big points for the Futurama reference, Cap'n!)

What you're actually supposed to play that game?

 

Okay that was a bad joke. I apologize.

 

Anyway, yes I did in fact in my first playthrough play SQ3 without finishing Astro chicken game (gave up after several miserable tries) and thus never got the secret message. Heck I didn't know there was a secret message. I just plodded along until I solved the game and with no idea why I was doing exactly this :D