¿Quién no conoce Angry Birds? Uno de los juegos más exitosos de los últimos años que batió todos los récords en iPhone y iPod y que sigue cosechando alabanzas en cada plataforma en la que sale. Seguramente ni Rovio (desarrolladora) ni Chillingo (distribuidora) preveían ni por asomo conseguir un éxito así.
Angry Birds is a game with a very simple approach: some green pigs have stolen some birds’ eggs, and the birds, pissed off, want to get them back by any means necessary. As? Launching against them using a catapult until they finish off everyone. But it won’t be easy, because the pigs will increasingly use protection, such as construction helmets or hats, and the levels will also become progressively more complicated.
The game is made up of 5 worlds and each world has an average of 45 different screens, so its duration is more than acceptable. On each screen we can get a certain score and depending on this, they will provide us with up to 3 golden eggs, which are used to unlock bonus screens in a special sixth world.
The iPhone version had already had Game Center integrated for some time, allowing player rankings to be established in the different worlds and recently the iPad version was also updated with this option.
As I mentioned, the game mechanics are very simple: we launch birds against green pigs with a catapult, but its execution is not so simple, since we will have to set strategies and use the different types of birds that we have at our disposal: 
- Red birds: They are the basic ones and do not have any special abilities.
- Yellow birds: When you throw them, if you touch the screen, they will be propelled at a higher speed, which makes them ideal allies for breaking wooden blocks.
- Bluebirds: When you touch the screen they explode and split into three smaller bluebirds. Perfect for breaking ice blocks.
- Bomb Birds: When you touch the screen they explode, destroying everything around them.
- White Birds: When you touch the screen, they lay an egg bomb that shoots downwards and also propels the bird upwards.
- Boomerang Birds: When you touch the screen they fly in a parabola as if they were a boomerang. Very useful for penetrating defenses from behind.
- Giant Red Birds: They are the same as red birds, but on steroids. They have much more strength and are capable of destroying stronger walls.
The game’s graphics are nice, the kind that girlfriends usually like and say “Oh, how cute…” or “Hahaha, look that pig is laughing at you.” It uses cartoon-style graphics that look unpainted and also give the impression of being very well cared for. What is quite ugly is, in my opinion, the title screen, because it has a drawing style that does not correspond to the rest of the game.
Angry Birds was so successful that on Halloween they released a new version with some levels for that theme, but when December arrived they changed the name to “Angry Birds Seasons” and included 25 Christmas-themed levels. The interesting thing about this update was that the Christmas levels were automatically unlocked for each day that passed until the arrival of Christmas Eve, a detail that I loved for its originality. They recently added many more Valentine’s-themed ones.
Angry Birds curiosities
Angry Birds also became a mass phenomenon, to the point of being parodied all over the Internet and at several awards shows. For example, last year at the Video Game Awards, Neil Patrick Harris demonstrated what Angry Birds would be like with real animals.
You have the video available on Youtube, but I don’t think it will last too long.
In College Humor they even tried to get the birds and the pigs to make peace, but without much success.
As if this were not enough, 20th Century Fox paid Rovio to release a new version of Angry Birds titled “Angry Birds Rio”, which will serve to advertise their new animated film and will be available in March 2011 and was officially announced during the SuperBowl publicity.
They also have a good amount of merchandising for the game, available in their official store, ranging from stuffed animals to cell phone cases (at the moment it seems only for iPhone 4).
In short, Angry Birds is one of those games that is worth buying for its excellent quality/price/duration ratio. However, as a drawback, it says that it does not have a universal version for iOS and that it has to be purchased separately for iPad and iPhone, which has meant losing some points in its final rating.