It’s easy to do a mobile game crossover. Take your most popular game and give it a makeover to resemble the pop culture phenomenon that makes the most money. This is the second time this has happened Angry Birds developer Rovio can’t get this simple formula right. That must be because the people are Finnish.
The first Angry Birds Star Wars Game was clearly not just a purely visual redesign. Rovio managed very well to include his already iconic birds and pigs star Wars costumes and filling the game with sights and sounds from the first film trilogy, but people couldn’t resist the temptation and had to innovate.
They refined the gravity elements of Angry Birds Space. They added features like blaster fire and with it the element of timing to the game. Objects could be made to levitate using the dark powers of the Force and remain above the ground until their Sith master died. Instead of just a revision, it was an evolution.
Now we are pleased with it Angry Birds Star Wars II, the perfect excuse to just give us more of the same – damn, it’s just the prequels, no one would notice. Instead we get a game that is true to the spirit of star Wars comes even closer. Another missed opportunity, Rovio.
At the start, players do not receive 80 consecutive levels, but 40 levels for each side of power. For the first time in the history of Angry Birds Let us also hurl pigs at birds and not just birds at pigs. It’s strangely satisfying.
The story levels still follow a path like they did in the first game, but now there are branches in the paths that are activated by hitting difficult targets in certain levels – so technically there can be more than 80 Levels are played. Unfortunately, I haven’t been particularly good at hitting these targets.
You can play with 32 characters – 18 on the light side and 14 on the pork side. These aren’t just copies of the characters from the first game either. Some are evolutions – for example, a soldier who fires scattered blaster fire rather than just a targeted charge. Others are completely new. Jango Fett fires rockets. Young Anakin Skywalker flies in a podracer. Jar Jar Binks holds onto objects with his tongue and then swings back and forth like a wrecking ball.
With the many new characters comes a new way to play. Using in-game money earned for completing achievements (oh yes, this game has achievements) or purchasing them for real money, players can purchase characters from the in-game store. Character packs are also available as rewards for successfully completing stages. These characters, purchased or received as rewards, can be used in place of the original characters at any time and in any level, giving players new options when they get stuck. This also increases the replay value.
When you use a character, the points you achieve with them are added together. Reaching the point target for a character will unlock their bonus level of reward chapters.
So many new ways to play, and I haven’t even mentioned the physical toys – Angry Birds Star Wars Telepods by Hasbro. This is mainly because these toys, while nice, are not at all necessary to the gaming experience. You don’t need them.
Whom the ingenuity of Angry Birds Star Wars II If there is one downside, it is that each new level is so fresh and exciting that I simply couldn’t stop playing and completed all of the game’s story levels in just over an hour. I still have a lot of stars to earn and special character levels to unlock and complete, but I devoured the story like an addict star Wars Withdrawal suffers.
Instead of using the Star Wars license to easily make a lot of money, most of the innovations were made in the Angry Birds Series within the framework of the two star Wars Games introduced. Rovio is really a strange company.
Angry Birds Star Wars II
Genre: Angry Birds
Developer: Rovio
Price: $0.99
Platform: Android, iOS
Stock up Angry Birds Star Wars II on Google Play (coming soon) —Get Angry Birds Star Wars II on iTunes
Angry Birds Star Wars II is coming in September – with a Skylanders twist
