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Angry Birds Journey is now available worldwide (unfortunately)
Awful monetization and balancing ruin it
Last year, almost to the day, Rovio released Angry Birds Journey in early access in select regions, including the US. Well, today marks the worldwide launch, and seeing that this is Rovio's first slingshot-based Angry Birds game in seven years, I'm sure plenty of you will want to know how it stacks up to the original. Is this a return to form for Rovio offering one of its best Android games yet, or is the studio still continuing down a depressing path of pay-to-win shenanigans? Sadly things just aren't up to snuff.
Angry Birds Legends is a new card-based RPG from Rovio, now available in beta
Is Rovio out of ideas? Let's take a look
For the last few years, Rovio has really been scraping the bottom of the barrel with its Angry Birds franchise. It would seem the dev has been slapping the property onto just about every casual gaming genre out there, from bubble poppers to match-3 titles, and then right back to bubble poppers, Rovio is clearly out of ideas. This is probably why the company is currently testing Angry Birds Legends in the UK, Sweden, and Finland as we speak. It's a card-based gacha RPG that stars Angry Birds characters, and since it's currently in testing in select regions, I've gone ahead and sideloaded the APK (v2.0.1) in order to take a closer look.
The original Angry Birds was one of the first cultural phenomenons in mobile gaming, eventually spawning multiple sequels, a movie franchise, and a really ugly dress. Now, there's an augmented reality version of Angry Birds, and you can play it on any Android device with ARCore compatibility. There are ads and in-app purchases, but the game is pretty fun.
It has been ten years since Rovio released the original Angry Birds on iOS, and in celebration of this anniversary as well as the upcoming release of The Angry Birds Movie 2 (August 14th), it would appear that the developer is eager to launch a new mobile game that ties into its licensed products. Angry Birds Explore offers just that as an augmented reality mini-game collection that contains many of the characters from The Angry Birds Movie 2.
The original Angry Birds was one of the first break out success stories in mobile gaming, quickly turning Rovio into a development powerhouse. The developer has launched a few non-avian games over the years, but Angry Birds remains its primary moneymaker. So, there's yet another Angry Birds title called Angry Birds Dream Blast.
Rovio Entertainment has been keeping themselves quite busy. Hot off the heels of last month's release of Battle Bay, Rovio has delivered on their promise of a June release for their newest take on the Angry Birds franchise. It is titled Angry Birds Evolution, and this time around you are tasked with collecting over 100 different birds in order to evolve your favorites into the strongest pig crushing team around.
Rovio's ever popular Angry Birds has become something of a phenomenon, with multiple games spanning different genres and billions of downloads. The franchise shows no signs of slowing down either. With movie tie-ins and spin-offs aplenty, the Finnish company continues to find new ways to push the series. It's been a long time coming, but the next evolution (ahem) of the game on Android is almost ready for primetime. Angry Birds Evolution will be released in the US next month and you can now pre-register for it, with a free starter pack worth $7.99 up for grabs for anyone who does so today.
Well, that Angry Birds movie is going to come out in a few weeks, so the time has come for Rovio's latest promotional vehicle to launch. Angry Birds Action! appeared in the Play Store as a geo-limited beta a few weeks ago, and now it's live for everyone. What's it like? It's a mix of pinball, classic Angry Birds, and desperation. I kid, sort of.
Despite the fact that excitement for endless Angry Birds iterations and spin-offs more or less died over a year ago, the Angry Birds movie is scheduled to hit theaters next month. (Apparently creating a 90-minute CG movie, complete with Hollywood talent, marketing, and distribution, takes a lot longer than making a 2D physics game.) Developer Rovio is pumping up the promotion machine starting with Angry Birds Action!, a 2.5D twist on the classic slingshot formula. At the moment it's soft-launched in New Zealand, but the game should be heading to other territories well before the May movie release.
Amazon Underground takes paid games and gives them away for free, with all the extra in-app purchases included. For users, it's a tempting way to get around handing over money for games you really want to play. The trade off comes in the form of ads and privacy. Amazon keeps up with every moment you spend gaming, because this is how it determines the amount of money to pay developers.
The original Angry Birds took flight on Android way, way back in 2010. It was followed by a number of spin-offs and expansions, but now the true sequel has arrived. You can tell by the name—Angry Birds 2. Rovio (and the market for mobile games in general) has changed dramatically in the years since the first game was released, so you can probably guess what that means. Yes, lots of in-app purchases. Sorry, guys.
Despite a fall from grace after numerous ill-advised cash-ins, Rovio's Angry Birds series remains synonymous with blockbusting success in mobile gaming. The franchise has had no less than fourteen official entries since its inception in 2009, including licensed versions for Transformers, Rio, and Star Wars, spin-offs starring the antagonist pigs and the Pink Bird Stella, and an utter embarrassment of a match-three game. Now, for the very first time, Angry Birds is getting its first direct and complete sequel.
Angry Birds games have a long and complicated history. The original was a huge hit, but each successive attempt felt less interesting. The few times Rovio has branched out have been... not awesome. Angry Birds Transformers, however, is unexpectedly entertaining.
Many moons ago, a plucky little game company named Rovio decided that a hungry wolf wasn't the only thing that could blow down the homes of snarky pigs — airborne fowl would also join in the on destruction. In subsequent lunar cycles, those homicidal kamikaze birds would continue to bring their particular breed of catastrophe down upon on the poor, defenseless porkbellies; and in turn, generate many money-dollars for the twisted jerks that inspired them. The loathsome avians are back to carry out more dastardly plots in Angry Birds Stella.
I get it, running around as a red bird in a funny-looking helmet may not be the kind of role-playing you envisioned, but if these feathered creatures can star in a halfway decent kart racer, an RPG might just be worth a look. The gameplay is traditional enough for veterans of the genre to dive into and straightforward enough for complete newcomers to understand. You simply drag and drop a line from your character to the enemy you wish to attack. Then you spin a wheel and get your loot. Depending on how well you do in each battle, you get, of course, one to three stars. You don't get to walk around the world map as you usually would in a game of this type. Instead, you progress linearly from battle to battle.
Who's ready for a new Angry Birds game? If you're not, you might just want to ignore the gaming news for the next month or so. After a tepid critical response from kart racer Angry Birds Go, the next entry in the series was revealed as a short social post leading to a small sub-site of AngryBirds.com. The title will be Angry Birds Stella.
Rovio's newest game is about what the Finnish developer knows best – birds. Though, they seem decidedly less angry this time in their little downhill race carts. Like it or not, this game is going to be huge.
The Angry Birds franchise has thus far been on the lighter side of the free-to-play model - the original game launched free and ad-supported on Android, and later versions added small charges for HD versions and a few in-app bonuses like the Mighty Eagle. But it looks like Rovio is pulling out all the stops when it comes to the upcoming kart racer, Angry Birds Go. Pocket Gamer reports that gamers in New Zealand (where the game is getting an early launch on iOS) are finding it positively stuffed with in-app purchases.
There comes a point in the life of every great gaming franchise where all original gameplay ideas have been exhausted. And right after that point, the developers give up and make a kart racer. For Rovio's omnipresent Angry Birds, the game is Angry Birds Go, a racing game that travels down the same well-trodden path as Mario Kart and a million also-rans. It comes out December 11th.