Pigs In Space!

Angry Birds. That's the topic.

Generally speaking, I don't like Angry Birds. It's fun...ish, but in a time-killing sort of way. Stick with me, the whole post isn't going to be Bird bashing. I admit that I play it, but I resent the ridiculous hype that it gets. Angry Birds is a flash game. Weather or not it's actually made using flash is incidental. It has the same complexity as any other flash game. There are hundreds of the exact same game out there. It's just a physics based catapult-destory-the-things game. All it has going for it beyond that is a unique artistic appearance and really good marketing. So I'm pretty emotionally chilly regarding the game.

     Now for the good stuff. Basically none of what I just said is true about Angry Birds: Space. I am really impressed with the game. I takes the root of the previous games. It uses the same birds (with a few tweaks and additions) and more or less the same physics. But instead of the same flat levels most of the levels are in space. If you don't know this, there is no gravity in space, so if you shoot something, say with a slingshot, it just keeps going. Nothing to pull it down to the ground. But there is gravity around celestial bodies such as tiny meteors and planteoids covered in pigs. So you've got these objects in space with a gravity well around it. You can fire a bird just right and it will enter a planetoid's gravity well and orbit the little rock 2 and sometimes even 3 times being slowly pulled down. That, or you can shoot a bird directly into this aura of Newtonian physics and it will plummet straight to the planet's surface.

    The gravity is definately the star of this game (no pun intended). What I find very gratifying are the wood and stone structures built around these tiny planets. If you destory these structures just right you can instigate a wave of destruction as the entire structure around the planet collapses in on itself. Crash after satisfying crash. Or if you're a fan of Star Trek you can use the gravity well to whip around the planet in a new direction much faster than you were going before. Or you can use gravity wells to weave in and out of smaller planets to reach your little green target.

    They also added Boss battles! Instead of an incredibly irritating level that requires the most ridiculous degree of precision to kill the "King Pig" you now get to shoot birds at space junk, attempting to deflect it at a pig piloting some ridiculous "space machine".

    But not all things are good. I am playing the game on my android Samsung Galaxy S II. So I was pleased when I finished a level and saw that, instead of being locked, I was able to play the next level that appears to be available only to people using a current gen high-end Samsung device. And I'll tell you, if I didn't have that I would have been Righteously indignant. Luckily I do.