Angry Birds – possibly the most popular mobile game ever made. Over the few years the game has been available, it’s like there hasn’t been a single day without Angry Birds in the news. Rovio Mobile, the developer of the game, has made sure that the Angry Birds mania grows to tremendous proportions by now only working on improving the game, but also through merchandizing and clever marketing. A bright example is the recent news story that Formula 1 driver Heikki Kovalainen is going to race with an Angry Birds-themed helmet.
Realizing that it has a money-making machine on its hands, following the launch of the original game, Rovio was dedicated to producing mostly more-of-the-same type of sequels of the game, with Angry Birds Seasons and Angry Birds Rio. While these newer games were pretty good as well, having that familiar cute cartoonish style, and the same addicting gameplay, Seasons and Rio didn’t bring almost any new features to the series. The main idea of the game remained largely the same, which made some of us question Rovio’s ability to design a different game (be it in the Angry Birds universe or not) with the same success.
When Angry Birds Space, the latest iteration of the franchise, got announced last month, we secretly started hoping for a change. Well, now that Angry Birds Space is finally here (available on iOS, Android, PC and Mac), and we’ve played through 30-something of its levels, we can safely say that Rovio has indeed recognized the need for some fresh air. As a result, Angry Birds Space is the first real departure from the gameplay mechanics that we’ve seen employed in the previous versions of the game.
GAMEPLAY
But why have the angry birds taken the fight to space, anyway? Here’s how the story goes: We find our familiar birds living peacefully on Earth, taking care of their beloved eggs. However, in a single moment of intergalactic significance, a space portal opens in the sky, and a new type ice bird comes through, carrying a golden egg. Soon after the ice bird lands on Earth, though, a mechanical hand of evil pig spaceship follows it through the space portal and grabs the golden egg, along with the normal eggs of our birds. Upon realizing that their eggs are gone, our feathery friends simply get onto that slingshot of theirs and launch through the space portal in the sky, and after the evil pigs. That pretty much sums up the main story line of Angry Birds Space. Probably not good enough for a feature-length film, but certainly deep enough for a successful mobile puzzle game.
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