Let’s face it, I’m reviewing what is one of the most hated games on the forums but truth be told Angry Birds Trilogy is actually a well put together package. I believe people hate on the game based on what they feel it represents rather than what it is but there is no defending that steep price.
Angry Birds Trilogy as the name suggests is three Angry Birds games rolled into one disc, Angry Birds Classic, Angry Birds Seasons & Angry Birds Rio can be found on the main menu right off the bat. They are all very similar to each other so you’re better off treating the Trilogy as one big game rather than three separate titles.
But what about Angry Birds Space I hear you ask, well that’s not here. Did you really think your £29.99 was going to get all the Angry Birds games?
Games such as Metroid Prime Trilogy & Vavle’s Orange Box have provided gamers will some of the best value in all of gaming, Angry Birds Trilogy on the other hand represents the worst I have ever seen. It’s a shame I’m starting the review on a negative but this is just something that cannot be overlooked, it’s insane that you can get all four Angry Birds games on your phone for under £3 whilst on consoles £30 only gets you three games.
What makes things even worse is that there have been times when Angry Birds was free, yes the whole game free of charge for a limited time. Even if you missed your chance you don’t need to worry, you can play Angry Birds for free over here. That’s not even a dodgy torrent website where you can pirate the game, seriously it’s free for everyone and you can even save it to play offline.
Angry Birds is a game originally released on the iPhone back in 2009, it’s a physics based puzzle game where the idea is to slingshot your bird into structures in an attempt to eliminate all the pigs. Initially the pigs are pretty easy to take out but as you progress through the game they’ll become sheltered by structures made of various materials such as wood, ice and stone.
The concept would be rather boring if that’s all you were doing so Angry Birds mixes things up by giving different birds different abilities. The red one you see everywhere is actually the worst one, seriously he is rubbish and it angers me any time I see him on the slingshot as he has no abilities.
The little blue ones are great because after you fire them you can press a button and cause them to split into three. Yellow birds are similar to the red ones but you can again press a button to cause them to boost forwards giving you extra ramming power. Finally black birds are also great because they are basically bombs that explode upon press a button yet again.
There are over 700 levels from what I can gather in Angry Birds Trilogy which is actually rather impressive considering you wouldn’t think the developers could stretch out the Anger Birds concept much further than a couple 100. It might be missing Angry Birds Space but if you’re an Angry Birds fan there is more than enough to keep you satisfied here.
Sadly all three games included in Angry Birds Trilogy as mentioned before are all pretty similar so whilst you get a lot of Angry Birds, you don’t get much variety.
At first it’s fun to simply fling birds at structures and hope for the best but as you progress the puzzle element of Angry Birds starts to reveal itself. You’ll be putting much more thought into where you are throwing these birds and be thinking about how to effectively use each bird.
You’ll notice that the little blue birds not only split into three but are very good at breaking through ice structures, likewise the yellow bird works great at powering through wood. Thankfully the birds and structures are colour coded so you don’t have to remember any of this, you just see the bird lined up in the sling shot and see where you want to throw him.
In terms of controls you wonder how well a touch screen based title will play on a controller and in the case of Angry Birds it plays great, in fact it’s better. The analog stick is used to control the direction of the slingshot and the sensitivity feels perfect so you, plus it helps that your finger is no longer blocking the slingshot.
One of the face buttons will activate your bird’s special ability assuming he has any (I’m looking at you red bird) and another can be held down for a brief second to restart the level which you’ll be doing a lot of. Shoulder buttons are used to focus the camera on the slingshot or further up on the level and again it all works fine.
Angry Birds Trilogy is sadly another one of those games features that dreaded “Better With Kinect Senor”, I played around with it for two minutes and yeah it’s trash as expected. Your left hand is used to handle the slingshot while your right is to launch and activate your bird’s special ability.
The best thing that I can say about it is that it does work, Kinect isn’t going to stop you from clearing a level but it’s just a pain to use in comparison to a controller. Angry Birds is a pretty simple game, it’s not like I can say that the trajectory of the angle the birds fly at are accurate according to a documentary I saw on the discovery channel but the fact Kinect can’t even work with a basic game like this is worrying. I’ve always said Kinect is the Dance Central peripheral and Angry Birds Trilogy does nothing to change that.
You might be surprised to find Angry Birds Trilogy to be one of the nicer looking titles to grace your TV, you won’t find any low frame rate, sub HD, badly aliasing, dull looking game here. Yes it’s an extremely simple game visually but it’s also very crisp and clean, Angry Birds Trilogy looks just as good on your console as it did on your iPhone retina display.
Sounds design isn’t as impressive because hearing constant birds sounds on your surround sound is far more annoying that it is hearing it on your little mobile speaker.
When it’s all said and done Angry Bird Trilogy isn’t a bad game, in fact it’s a perfect port of a mobile game that plays rather well on a controller. The problem with Angry Birds Trilogy is that it was never meant to be a console title, it was clearly designed around burst gaming therefore it’s natural home is on a handheld device.
Porting a mobile game to a console isn’t a crime, charging consumers £29.99 for something that’s under £3 on a mobile however is.
