To begin with, the game still keeps true to the Angry Birds tradition with all the existing birds and notorious pigs at war with each other. The plot is simple. The pigs now come dressed in robotic suits through a wormhole and steal the birds’ eggs. The birds must then fly through the wormhole to try and stop them.
However, all characters are now better animated, especially the birds who have had a superb space makeover in terms of their looks. The black bird, which is my personal favourite, now looks even more amazing when released as it emits a trail of blazing fire.
The game has introduced some new birds as well. The yellow bird has now been transformed into a purple triangular bird which can be aimed in any direction on double tapping once released. Then there’s the Ice Bird which turns any structure into a good portion of ice making it easier for other birds to easily break through.
Visually, the game looks stellar with detailed backgrounds. A useful addition to the aesthetics of the game is introduction of a red dotted line marking the trajectory of the bird while pulling them back to fire. This is quite helpful when it comes to aiming.
The background music is pretty neat with variations of the Angry Birds theme that now employs brilliant sci-fi effects. The sounds of the birds and the pigs largely remain the same as before.
The game fields have totally changed since it is now set in space. There are 4 worlds to begin with: Pig Bang, Cold Cuts, Danger Zone, and Eggsteroids with more worlds to be offered by Rovio soon. As you play along, you realize that applying plain physics isn’t the only requirement of the game and you end up exploring various trial and error methods for the gravitational pull concept.
You can chose to either to directly aim at the pigs to push them out of the gravity field towards the ground or shoot at the asteroids to cause some major destruction. This allows pieces to disintegrate and float in space which I thought looked really cool.
I found the stages quite challenging with the introduction of the gravitational field concept. The birds are launched from an asteroid surface that curves around 360 degrees while the huge halos have a deteriorating gravity field within.
Certain levels have more than one gravity field and requires you to aim in such a way that the bird goes through one field in one direction and the other way in another field to finally hit the target. If you miss the pigs, the birds are seen flying into outer space and disappearing from the screen.
Some levels also have golden eggs hidden on certain surfaces. If you manage to aim correctly, they immediately take you through a warp zone to play a bonus level.
What I loved most about Angry Birds Space is that the level of difficulty is just right enough to offer multiple hours of challenge. And being the fourth iteration of the game, saturation levels aren’t even close. You won’t feel like giving your device a break as you constantly try to bend the laws of physics and avenge those birds!
One disappointing fact is that the free Android version of the game consumes way too much battery life, thanks to the ads appearing on the screen every now and then. There are limited worlds in the free version and once you’re done with them, you’d definitely want more. You can however purchase Angry Birds Space Premium from the Google Play if you’d like an ad-free experience.
Angry Birds Space, in collaboration with NASA, The Daily and the National Geographic offers a whole new level of creativity and engaging gameplay. The iPad version allows an in-app purchase of 30 additional levels for the Danger Zone world, which means more hours of gameplay.
It also provides the Mighty Eagle option, another in-app purchase that helps you in crossing a level. This also means that Rovio needs to keep up the pace and offer its users a bit more. It’s needless to say that the game is a real keeper for all gamers alike.
Angry Birds Space HD (iPad, $2.99 – Reviewed here)
Angry Birds Space (iPhone/iPod Touch, $0.99)
Angry Birds Space Premium (Google Play, Rs. 50.66)
Angry Birds Space HD (Google Play, Rs. 153.00)
Angry Birds Space (Google Play, Free)
