With strong titles like Tumble Jumble, Aztec Quest and (the newly updated) Angry Birds, Clickgamer is quickly becoming a force to be reckoned with when it comes to physics-based puzzle games. Clickgamer consistently offers fun and engaging experiences, that both tickle your funny bone and challenge your mind, and Angry Birds is a perfect example of this.
At its core, Angry Birds is a tower-toppling puzzle game, but with a unique twist. Instead of using ordinary bombs or projectiles to destroy the wood, steel, stone and glass constructions, players are given a variety of cute birds (each with their own special properties) with which to slingshot into the structures. The goal is not necessarily to destroy the buildings, but rather to take out the all of the menacing green pigs hellbent on stealing the birds’ precious eggs. Some of these pigs are wearing protective gear, and thus will require either direct hits or a lot of wood and stone to drop on them to take them out.
In each level, you have a limited supply of birds at your disposal. These birds could be all of one species or a collection of multiple types. Simply use your finger to draw back the bird on the giant slingshot and let go to fire it toward the structure containing the pigs. The further you draw back, the greater the power; slide your finger up and down to adjust the angle. You will see a dotted line on the screen representing the trajectory of your last shot to help you line up your next.
The landscape of the game is spread out enough that unless you zoom way out, you will have to slide back and forth between the slingshot and the structure to line up your shot. If you want to actually see the pigs/structure while aiming your shot, you can pinch the screen to shrink everything to fit on the screen all at once. Although, in this zoomed out view it can be difficult to get a good handle on your angle and power, so you are better off sliding the screen to the left to see the structure and then back to the right to do your firing. Don’t worry, as soon as the projectile (bird) flies off the right edge of the screen, everything will auto scroll over for you so you can follow the action. In truth, we did find the lack of being able to see everything on the same screen all at once (w/o zooming out) a bit annoying at first, but that went away quickly as we played more and more of the game.
Say hello to your fowl feathered friends
There are five different types of birds in your arsenal and as we mentioned, each has its own very special abilities.
- Red Birds – Strong, take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’.
- Blue Birds – Tap the screen while these little guys are in the air, and they will split into three separate projectiles, giving you triple the damage.
- Yellow Birds – Tap the screen while these triangualr birds are in the air and they will speed up in the current direction and exert even more force and damage.
- Black Birds – Look like little bombs and that;s exactly what they are. Once they hit something, they will turn red and detonate in a couple seconds, leaving a mass of destruction around them. Alternately, you can tap the screen to detonate them at any time.
- White Birds – Look like an egg, tap the screen while the bird is in the air, and he’ll drop a powerful egg bomb that will do some nice damage (especially to pigs with helmets).
After its recent update, the full game now offers over 100 levels, so there is A LOT of gameplay to be had. Players must successfully complete a level before the next level is unlocked. You earn points for taking out the pigs and and the structures. There is also an opportunity to earn bonus points by completing levels without having to utilize your complete allocation of birds. At the end of each level, you are given a 1 to 3 star ranking based on your performance. Crystal (Chillingo’s social gaming platform) adds some additional features like achievements and global leaderboards (all the way down to the individual puzzle), so getting a high score will earn you some nice bragging rights.
Beautifully illustrated background scenery and cute, cartoony birds and pigs mesh together perfectly to create a fun and inviting graphical style to the the game. Each of the birds has its own character and even the “mean” pigs look pretty cute. Angry Birds has no in-game music to speak of, but there is some nice ambient animal noise and the sound effects are top-notch, especially the strrreeeeaaaatching noise for the slingshot.
Having no real-world experience launching birds into buildings, we are going to go out on a limb and say that the physics engine used in Angry Birds is very realistic. That being said, there were a several instances where a structure would collapse on top of a pig and it would remain unharmed. Either these sources of green ham are tougher than we give them credit for, or there are still a few small glitches to work out.
Fans of games like Boom Blox and Implode! or physics-based puzzle games in general, will definitely find a lot to love about Angry Birds. The new content that arrived with the latest update has nearly doubled the gameplay, making the Angry Birds an absolute steal at $0.99. If for some crazy reason you are still unwilling to fork over your buck, there is a free lite version as well.
Stay tuned to AppAddict.net as we will be running a contest soon, where you’ll have a chance to win your very own Angry Birds poster.
