Angry Birds for iPhone

Watching the graceful flight of a swallow or listening to the long-haul honks of overhead geese you’d imagine that birds are gentle, patient fellows. Wrong. They’re angry. And some pigs have pissed them off.

Angry Birds, despite it’s light, cartoon style, is a story concerning genocide and revenge. Some pigs saw a nest full of eggs and took ‘em, then made an egg sandwich. Forget for the moment that this nest was on the ground (pigs can’t fly!) and unattended (bad bird parenting), this is a serious situation and can only be rectified by the complete annihilation of pig-kind.

A clever bird might wage a political war or boycott pig influence around the globe. But these birds are not smart or inclined to discussion. These are birds of action and care nothing of what happens to themselves. You see, these birds fling themselves at pigs using a giant catapult. Simple, but effective.

I’m grateful there’s no bizarre control system to decipher, just a catapult you operate with your finger. Pull back, aim and away! And you’re left to be charmed by a handful of wacko birds, loads of levels and a some very satisfying tower destruction. Angry Birds is sort of a cross between reverse-Jenga and genocide: topple the building and slaughter the porkers!

I said wacko? Look here, the magic “split into three birds” bird when you swipe the screen:

There’s the bomb bird too, who’s feathers are shed when he hits an object, revealing that he’s actually a huge red bomb:

The birds may be fake, but the physics are real. Real, satisfying and weighty, like a large boob. Birds fire themselves high into the sky, arcing slowly and finally crashing down into ham. Glance a pig and he’ll bruise, leaving your bird in a pile of feathers. But succeed in slamming the pork and you’re a hero of bird-kind! Onward and upward, with ham sandwiches!

I took like a duck to water to Angry Birds. With quick, easy gameplay it’s fun to play for a few minutes or half an hour. There are some pretty tough levels that take twenty minutes and forty restarts to complete, but the simplicity of the bird catapult and the satisfying feel and thud of birds whacking against structures never tires. And all this for 59p, you can’t go wrong.

(The only complaint I have is that the iPhone screen perhaps isn’t large enough to show the entire battlefield. Often you’re scrolling from the catapult to the pigs, or zooming out to see it all, but then you can’t see the neat art closeup. I’m sure once the iPad is out there in the wild we’ll see a Angry Birds XL. No, wait – I got. Bad taste and relevant: Angry Birds with Wings…)