Angry Birds 2

The original Angry Birds was a straight up masterpiece. I don’t mean it had any kind of grandeur or great accomplishment, I mean in terms of a MOBILE game. Despite it still technically being a video game, I’m sure everyone can agree that you want different things from a console/PC game versus a mobile game. Mobile games need to keep it simple. I wouldn’t want to play a 100 hour RPG on a fucking iPhone and if you want to I question your taste. Mobile games should be a fun time waster. Something you can pop into after not playing for a day, a month, etc. and still be able to have fun with it. It should have a simple task and linear structure if any at all.

It should not have a menu that is eye-stabbingly horrible to look at that is filled with shiny pointless buttons. It should not be bogged down by contrived “multiplayer” games and events. It should not have fucking GEMS. But if you think these are the only problems with this game you are sorely mistaken. The design of Angry Birds 2 is completely insulting. Let’s talk about the difficulty curve. It begins with a swathe of levels so easy you could probably complete it off an entire bottle of hydrocodone. Then as soon as you get past this stage they completely ramp it up. There is no transition to this difficulty spike. They do not use levels to teach you how to play the game. Even the tutorials for new birds sometimes don’t even give you the bird you need or instructions??? How could you make an oversight like this? And it’s obvious why this difficulty spike is present. It’s to waste your 5 fucking lives. So you can pay for more. Pay more for 3 more birds to complete a level. Watch an advertisement to get one more bird. It’s the most soulless cash grab of a fucking game without an OUNCE of originality. These levels are designed in order to get you to line the pockets of the fat cats who work at Rovio. You’ll always need one more bird, you’ll always need one more life. You will never find yourself having the simple fun offered in the original Angry Birds.

The physics of this game are completely fucked. Sometimes towers of pigs will simply fall over before you even fling a bird. The satisfaction is completely stolen. The new birds abilities are complete shit. The silver looking one that flies in a circle and goes down is completely useless when compared to the egg-laying bird who can simply drop a bomb straight down. Red’s new ability to do a weird sound wave is contrived and stupid. Why? The original game was a huge success and Red had no ability. Why dilute the formula for success.

Let’s talk about the actual gameplay. I will not lie. There are still a few moments where it feels like playing the original. When you get a really nice shot in and knock an entire level down there’s still that dopamine rush. But this winning idea of “Angry Birds” been completely oversaturated. First of all there is some kind of stupid hat system where you have to get all the hats and they make the birds look quite shit. Secondly, there is a really convoluted system of item acquiring. I don’t even understand it, there are these strange crystal balls you are supposed to give a fuck about, these dumb upgrade feathers to make your birds more powerful, and every time you open a chest it is a random crapshoot for what you get then it gives you the options to get more if you pay fucking gems. Third, and this is the worst part, the game is made to have complete artificial difficulty by every level having some big floating hunk of land in front of the sling shot blocking the pigs. “Forget actually designing a fucking fun level just chuck a huge rock in front of the slingshot to make it harder to hit these shit towers of wood, stone, and glass that literally look the same across the entire game”. The whole game basically turns into Aim Around the Rock 2.

Fuck you Rovio and fuck the 4 million other shitty Angry Birds games. And fuck off for taking the original game off the app store.