Angry Birds 2 (2015)

I don't usually review mobile games and I don't usually give bad reviews, but I feel like I have to call out the egregious microtransactions here. This isn't something that just plagues Angry Birds, it's a large swathe of mobile games, and really the gaming industry as a whole. These transactions haven't been "micro" for a long time either, in the case of Angry birds a single transaction can be charged at £99 / $127 USD...

The game is a noticeable step up in terms of graphical fidelity, level layout, and animation. Unfortunately that's where the praise ends, every other component of the game feels like it's been designed to maximise retention and profit, in fact it's painful how apparent it is.

The worrying thing for me is that this is primarily a kids game. Upon opening the game, bam a pop-up. Finishing a level, another pop-up, entering the hub / shop area, another pop-up usually one overlayed over another. On the hub / shop screen there are five or more selections that will lead to a transaction. It's everywhere. There's gems, pearls, hats, feathers, an entire season pass, and probably more forms of currency I'm forgetting. You want hats? You need pearls, run out of pearls? You need gems, run out of gems? You need real money or gamble by flipping cards in the Tower of Fortune.

And then we move onto the mini games and challenges. At times it feels like these mini games are pushed more than the main levels of the game, and that would make sense as these mini games have a seriously high fail rate... Which can he overcome by redoing them over and over using gems. What happens when you run out of gems? You can buy more! These mini games include spinning wheels of fortune, and flipping cards in increasingly risky rounds in the Tower of Fortune to get rewards until you hit a dummy card and lose everything (but you can get everything back if you spend gems!). It's clear risk and reward here with the incentive to use real money.

You might think okay I can ignore all that and just stick to the main map and grind through the levels. Immediately there's an energy system which caps you at six levels until it needs to refill... But fear not you can buy more energy! (I actually didn't mind this energy system because it gave me time screen breaks which I think are healthy). So you're finally in one of your six levels you'll get to play this session but you soon realise the levels are getting near impossible to complete - what's that? There's spells to make it easier? Yay! Oh the spells are limited? How do I get more so I can progress easier? MONEY.

You get the idea here, this isn't a new phenomenon by any means, it's just that it's especially heavy handed here. Rovio Entertainment responds to a lot of the negative reviews on the app store, claiming they acknowledge the impact the heavy use of transactions have, the pop ups, and the risk to kids using the app and that they take everything onboard. The app was released in 2015... I don't think Rovio Entertainment have any intention of changing and it's an all too familiar sight of companies pretending to care and then doing nothing. Do better Rovio.

How has this precedent been allowed to be set for our games? Why do we have levels that are purposely designed to be nearly unbeatable without spending money? What kind of environment does it create for the kids that this game is marketed towards? Are we playing games to be exposed to endless marketing and sales pitches? Or are we playing to have fun and explore the creativity that games have the opportunity to celebrate? When did we lose sight of what was important and favour capitalist greed over everything else?

I guess for me it's especially disappointing as the first game was a lot of fun, I spent hours on it without spending a penny as a kid and now we have this. It's dystopian and it's been embedded into the gaming space for too long.

A more polished, upgraded formula of the original birdy adventures, with lots of levels, weekly and daily challenges, ranked arena mode and much more. Has a bit much nonsense elements for my taste, like 10 different ingame currencies and unlockable hats for your birds, but gameplay-wise it is still very enjoyable. Since it's a mobile game, I recommend turning off the internet if you only play single player, to rid yourself of the annoying advertisements, even if you lose some free stuff because of this.

While playing, you can use any unlocked bird in every level and your power-ups too, which is a strange design decision, but I think that's what makes it more unique and distinguishable from the first game. Playing the same level twice results in a different experience, since some elements are randomized around a basic design, which is a great mechanic to change things up a bit. Unfortunately the levels start look so similar after a while, there could have been more building materials to increase the variety.

Overall, it's a good way to kill some time and pigs along the way. If you liked the previous one, you will not be disappointed.