The Angry Birds birds have had quite an illustrious career so far and all for the sake of saving their precious eggs. After debuting in 2009, they’ve battled across multiple seasons, through Rio, and now they’re taking their fight where no Angry Bird has gone before: Space!
In Angry Birds Space, the birds are enjoying their time with their eggs when a mysterious portal opens up in the middle of the sky. An alien bird lands on their planet along with a golden egg. Suddenly, a giant set of metal claws come out of the portal and grabs the alien birds golden egg, along with the Angry Birds’. When the Angry Birds travel through the portal, they’re transformed into different versions of themselves. Space versions, if you will.
If you’ve been playing Angry Birds as long as I have, then you’ll feel like you’ve been training for a more serious challenge to come along. Angry Birds Space is that challenge as it takes everything you’ve learned from previous games and throws in a new game mechanic that will take players a high number of tries to get it as perfect as Rovio wants you to. Gravity plays a very big role in Angry Birds Space as you’ll be using the gravitational pull of planets and their satellites to get your birds exactly where you want them to be. It’s not all gravity based though as there are a number of puzzles that require you to navigate your birds through no-gravity situations.
The addition of gravity to the classic Angry Birds gameplay mechanic adds a ton of replayability as you can solve puzzles in not so obvious manners. Sure, you can go head on and try to take down the pigs’ structure as best you can, but what about taking the opposite route and attacking the pigs using a planet’s gravity? That’s the kind of new gameplay mechanics Angry Birds Space opens up and will challenge veteran players of the series.
At its launch, Angry Birds Space has three planets available, but more planets will be available in the months to come through free updates. You’ll play through each level on a planet in order to defeat pigs as well as achieve the highest score possible by destroying everything in your way. All of the Angry Birds we have played with are all here: Red bird, blue birds, and my personal favorite, the yellow bird. Angry Birds Space introduces a new bird to the mix, an Ice Bird that when you tap your screen will freeze a small area surrounding him, which makes it much easier to destroy as the area will shatter with the lightest touch.
Collecting golden eggs will open a portal that will take the Angry Birds to special video game inspired stages. These stages pay homage to other video games such as Space Invaders, Super Mario Bros., and Arkanoid. Finding these golden eggs has become a secret obsession of mine as I can’t wait to see what classic video game Rovio has payed homage to. These bonus levels can also be accessed from the planet selection screen after the player has collected them.
Conclusion:
Rovio has received critical acclaim for every Angry Birds title they’ve published since Seasons, and Angry Birds Space will be no different. Throwing gravity into the mix and rewarding players for thinking outside the box as well as offering bonus video game inspired levels has revitalized the series. Rovio has done it again in offering the best Angry Birds game yet.
iPhone: Angry Birds Space ($.99) / iPad: Angry Birds HD ($2.99)
Android: Angry Birds Space (FREE) / Angry Birds HD ($2.99)