If you have any kind of touch screen smart phone, chances are you will have come across or heard of a game called “Angry Birds”. It is an extremely popular laws-of-physics game based on a very simple idea but such a good one. I’ll be looking specifically at Angry Birds on the upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system since Rovio (the Angry Birds Developer) has recently released it to the marketplace.
For those of you who don’t know how Angry Birds works, basically the aim of the game is to destroy all the pigs on a given level by hurling angry birds at them with a catapult. Why? Well the pigs have stolen the birds eggs, silly! The pigs are usually defended by different types of equipment, clothes, walls and buildings and it’s your task to break through them and destroy the pigs by knocking them off from a height or hitting them with either your bird or debris. There are many different types of birds available in the game, each having its own special attributes.
- You start out with a standard red bird which has no special powers which you just hurl at the Pigs defences to destroy them.
- The next bird you encounter is the blue bird which are smaller than the red bird so don’t pack as much punch but when you click on screen once you’ve launched it, it splits into 3 separate birds.
- Next is the pointy faced yellow bird, when clicked in mid air it instantly accelerates to a really fast speed and changes to a straight course. Really good for smashing through wood!
- The White Bird is a fat and plump bird. When tapped in mid air, an egg will come shooting out of it at high speed vertically downwards and explodes when it hits something and the white bird goes flying off into the sky! It is basically a bomber bird!
- The Black Bird is the best in my opinion! Once it touches an object it will start a timer and explode in a few seconds causing massive devastation! Alternately you can tap on the screen to decide when to detonate it. A heavyweight in the bird arsenal.
- The last bird is the Boomerang one which ones pressed will basically try and return to its original position. Good for getting in from behind!
- There are also a few other special ones such as the Big Brother bird which is essentially a bigger version of the red bird.
There are literally hundreds of levels available currently with more on their way. It is a really addictive and fun game. At the end of a level, once all the pigs have been cleared you get a star score out of 3 depending on the points you earn. It is a good feature because it allows you to have a good reason to go back to old levels and improve your technique and use less birds to gain more points. One thing you will definitely notice if you play this game is that luck plays a big part! You can be stuck on a level for ages but sheer luck usually pulls you through but the nice part is you feel as if you’ve accomplished it so it’s all good. That’s not to say that the game itself “cheats”. As I said at the start it’s based on the law of physics- velocity, kinetics and all that guff. In other words when you hit something it behaves as you would imagine in the real world. It is also consistent, so if you find a winning way of toppling that pig in one game, then it should work again in other games with similar situations.
The game runs as smooth as it does on any other Smartphone so you know they have definitely put the work in to get it running really well. There are no signs of lag, even on some of the really big levels. The WP7 (Windows Phone 7) release currently has all the latest updates but one, the “Mine and Dine” level pack which is currently available for many other platforms. So the game is lacking in that area currently but within time an update is likely to come. There are still literally hundreds of levels anyway and it will take you a while to get through them all and by that time the update will have likely arrived.
The thing that makes Angry Birds unique on Windows Phone 7 is the addition of Xbox Live achievements within the game, from which you can earn gamerscore! So this adds new challenges to the game as you try and get all the achievements. A total of 200 G’s are available and the achievements are as follows:
- Ice Picker (10 G): 5000 Ice Blocks Destroyed
- Seeing Red (5 G): Big Brother Bird Unlocked
- Green Baron (10 G): Episode 3 Finished
- Woodpecker (10 G): 5000 Wooden Blocks Smashed
- Return To Sender (5 G): Boomerang Bird Unlocked
- The Mysterious Escape (10G): Episode 2 Finished
- Pig Popper (10 G): 1000 Pigs Smashed
- Defeat of The King (10 G): Episode 1 Finished
- Mother of All Bombs (10 G): White Bird Unlocked
- Boom Boom! (5 G): Black Bird Unlocked
- Just Getting Started (15 G): World 1 Finished
- Speed Is The Essence (5 G): Yellow Bird Unlocked
- Spit It! (5 G): Blue Bird Unlocked
- Episode 1 – Total Destruction (15 G): Episode 1: Get three stars in all levels
- Episode 2 – Total Destruction (15 G): Episode 2: Get three stars in all levels
- Episode 3 – Total Destruction (15 G): Episode 3: Get three stars in all levels
- Smash Maniac (15 G): Smash 250 000 Blocks
- StoneCutter (10 G): Smash 5000 Stone Blocks
- Block Smasher (15 G): Smash 50 000 Blocks
- Egg Hunter (10 G): Find 10 Golden Eggs
Unlike other Smartphone platforms, unfortunately there is no free, ad based version of Angry Birds available which so if you want the full version you’ll have to pay for it but at £2.29 it’s a small price to pay. Angry Birds is Rovio’s first game to be released on the WP7 marketplace and we look forward to new additions to the Angry Birds family in the future such as “Angry Birds Seasons” but Windows Phone 7 is a fairly new OS though so the developers are having to catch up a bit!
Conclusion:
At £2.29 how can you turn this game down? You are guaranteed to get hours of playtime out of it. There is a reason it is one of the most popular mobile phone games out there to date so if you’ve just bought a Windows Phone then definitely get it! Although it is lacking some content, the addition of Xbox-Live achievements definitely makes up for it and adds new life into the game once all the levels are completed. If you’re still sceptical about the game then a trial is available once you try that out you’ll see how addictive and fun this game really is.
