Software Spotlight: Angry Birds
Software Spotlight is a series that will be debuting on MaemoMagazine.com that will take a detailed look at exceptional community and/or commercial software available for Maemo-based devices.
This week we will be taking a look at Angry Birds by Rovio Mobile ltd.
Angry Birds is a physics-based strategy game that offers a unique description:
The survival of the Angry Birds is at stake. Dish out revenge on the green pigs who stole the Birds ’ eggs. Use the unique destructive powers of the Angry Birds to lay waste to the pigs’ fortified castles. Angry Birds features hours of gameplay, challenging physics-based castle demolition, and lots of replay value. Each of the 21 levels requires logic, skill, and brute force to crush the enemy. Protect wildlife, or play Angry Birds!
With such a colorful and interesting description, how will the game itself stack up?
When you first launch the game and select “Play” you are presented with a short cut-scene depicting the birds sitting around their empty nest wondering where their eggs have gone.
The next shot shows the perpetrators of this horrible theft: the pigs!
This is the basis of the whole game and provides the games goal — destroy the pigs and anything that stands in your way!
You accomplish this by slinging the birds at the pigs and their accompanying fortress with an over-sized slingshot.
That may sound simple enough, but it isn’t. The game features awesome real world physics that you need to take into effect while playing. You can adjust the angle at which you sling the birds, you can choose to bounce the birds off something first (like the back of a rock) or specifically target a weak point in the pigs’ fortress so that it’ll collapse.
There are many different materials that the pigs will build their fortresses out of, including stone, wood, and ice, and each has a different strength and weakness.
Fortunately, the game provides you with different types of birds that attack each differently. The blue “ice bird” will easily destroy ice fortresses but will barely touch a wooden one while the yellow “wood bird” will chew through wood but struggle breaking down ice, and so on and so forth. This must be strongly considered when trying to break down a fortress that is comprised of many different materials and you are provided different types of birds. This, in addition to the very real-world physics can make some levels very challenging which just adds to the fun.
Even after you finish a level by destroying all the pigs, you can try for another goal: getting three stars on every level.
The game keeps track of your high scores for each level, 5000 points for each pig destroyed, 10000 for each “unused” bird and various additional points for destroying the pigs’ fortresses.
So even after you complete all the levels, you still have the goal of getting 3 stars on each one. Since there are 21 strategically-designed levels in the base game, this leaves literally hours of gameplay.
If you are like me, though, this still won’t be enough — once you are hooked on this game you won’t be able to put it down. And even when it is finished you’ll want to install more levels. Fortunately, Rovio has created an official levelpack that can be purchased. The levelpack adds two additional “worlds” (21 levels in each) for a total of 42 levels.
The level pack adds lot of cool things to the game; you now have two additional type of birds at your disposal: a black bird that will explode after a second or two on the ground (this is my personal favorite) and a bird that drops egg bombs.
In addition to that, the levelpack adds some new items to the game, for example, crates of TNT. I’ll leave it up to your imagination what happens when you hit one of those.
(OK, I lied)
In short, if you liked the levels in the base game, you’ll love the expansion pack levels.
Summary:
Overall I really liked the game. The graphics are terrific, the real-world physics are absolutely awesome, and the storyline is fun. I have to say, it is usually a good sign when a professional blogger goes to review a game, and in the process, totally gets hooked playing it.
Pricing and Availability:
The base game is free (along with the first 21 levels) and the levelpack won’t exactly blow the budget either, at only $3.
Unfortunately, due to some issues with Nokia’s OVI Store, the levelpack is unavailable for purchase. Hopefully, these issues will be ironed out shortly so you can enjoy a great game and support a high-quality game developer for Maemo 5.
Update: it appears that the issues with the OVI Store have been sorted out and that the levelpack is now available for purchase. Happy gaming!
Disclaimer: All images and materials used with permission of Rovio Mobile Ltd.
Related posts:
I feel like I am back in 1999, when buying Mobile applications was in it’s infancy for most of the world. Here we have a wonderful game, and you can’t buy it. Nokia, seriously, go buy an iphone and see how the browsing, selecting and purchasing of mobile applications is done. Using the web browser to search and select apps is just stupid! After you select the application to install from the OVI store in the web browser, it hands it off to the Application Manager!
Wow a new type of game with the birds as the heros getting back their eggs from some theiving green pigs A perfect gift for any bird lover with one of those phones
They look like maybe a BLUEBIRD,CARDINAL,CROW,CANARY and PIGEON and when the canary discovers that green pigs have stolen their eggs he tells the rest and the birds declare war on the pigs and the BIRDS DONT TAKE PRISONERS