Angry Birds Space

You probably think you know Angry Birds. It's been on just about every platform that can potentially connect to the internet, serve ads, or checkout an order. Combined with it's immense success in the casual sphere, it has become something of a phenomenon, one that, eventually, hardcore gamers would dismiss wholesale. Which is their own loss in my opinion.

Now, I didn't exactly "get" the first round of Angry Birds. I thought it was too mechanical. The moving parts were too obvious. The strategies were too brute force. However, the graphics, the gimmicks, the attention to detail and the post-launch support made it a hard offer to turn down, especially for a dollar per iteration. And as long as you ignored the App Store rankings and the T-shirts at Wal-Mart, the fame was inconsequential- Angry Birds has always been a solo affair.

But what about Space, the sequel that I'm reviewing? How does it stack up to this dynastic series? As it turns out, it's completely (and surprisingly) awesome. The setting for the game, space, let's it do some interesting things that few indie developers probably could. Almost every level is replete with several moons and planetoids, or varying sizes and descriptions, as well as rocks, pigs and other miscellany. Since the bigger objects have gravity, the game has a puzzling bent to it, allowing you to bend birds' trails, throw things into orbit, and generally jam in zero gravity. Until you've imploded a pig base under its own gravity, you haven't seen what this game is capable of.

Besides, its a dollar. Instead of buying, say, Mass Effect 3, you could buy this game for you and fifty-nine other people. If that isn't a good value proposition, I don't know what is.

Unless this year really surprises me, look for Angry Birds Space on my Game of the Year list.

Seriously.