[Review] Angry Birds 2 pulls a Candy Crush to make money

Rovio is no amateur when it comes to developing and delivering smash hits in gaming. It had released the wildly popular Angry Birds way back in 2009. In between, they have come up with eleven ‘chapters’ of the first game, three spin offs and one crossover (with none other than Sonic the Hedgehog). 

All the while, Rovio tried new things, learning the ropes as it went along – adding characters, improving graphics and revamping gameplay. At times, it brought out a gem (Angry Birds Space) and otherwise, it simply slumped (Angry Birds Go!). After all these, Rovio has finally come out with the official sequel – Angry Birds 2. 

Does it live up to the hype? Does it deliver? 

Nope. Let us tell you why.

WHAT WORKS: 

We love the way Rovio has gone all out on game design. Everything looks like a bright and colourful dream. This is the best any Angry Birds game has looked so far. 

There is an incredible depth in your gaming screen that is only heightened by gorgeous ambience and smooth animations. Its the little things that make Angry Birds 2 a treat to the senses. 

When you defeat a boss piggy, there is a weird satisfaction watching the pig fly right into your screen, again playing with the great depth of the level designs.

The levels are now divided into multiple stages. You need to blast through each stage and move on to the next to clear the next level. 

This adds to the gameplay time, increasing it just enough to keep the adrenaline running, but never bores you down. 

Like Angry Birds Star Wars II, you can choose the type of bird you want to launch at the grunting pigs. It may not matter much in the initial levels, but as you progress through the game, you have to properly chalk out your strategy, because a wrong bird may lead to failing a complex level and start all over again. 

Angry Birds 2 also feature candid spells. These act like power ups that you can deploy at the beginning of a level to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting pigs. There is the Freeze spell, which turns fort structures into ice, making them much easier to break. 

The Golden Duck spell lets you unleash a forbidding ‘duck rain’, which destroys almost everything on your screen. There are many more spells to fool around with, each more delightful than the other.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK: 

Rovio has taken a leaf out of King and Supercell when they designed Angry Birds 2. As soon as you make a little progress in the game, Rovio urges you to spend your hard-earned money or your precious time to go any further. 

Each player gets a total of five lives. If you fail the levels and exhaust all of the lives, you have to wait for an agonising 30 minutes to refill them. Otherwise, you can buy gems (with real money of course) to get extra lives, or watch a promotion 30 second video to earn lives. 

The amount of paid content starts to bode heavily on you, so much so that you feel like you are playing a prime freemium game like Candy Crush or Clash of the Clans. For someone who enjoyed the no-barrier gameplay of the original Angry Birds, the new installment feels disappointing, to say the least. Verdict: Angry Birds 2 could have been another iconic chapter in the series. 

Rovio’s turn to pay-to-play freemium gaming mars the fun the game has to offer. However, we cannot take away the fact that if you are ready to pay, Angry Birds 2 delivers great arcade fun, that can hook you to your tablet for hours on end.