Angry Birds Star Wars II Doubles Down On Fan Service To Great Effect [Review]

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Angry Birds Star Wars II

I have a confession to make: I was probably the only human being on the planet not playing the original Angry Birds when it came out all the way back in 2009. As much as I love both birds and giant slingshots, I never really saw the appeal. I played for about five minutes, shot some birds into some things, and then shrugged and gave up.

Angry Birds Star Wars II by Rovio
Category: iOS Games
Works With: iPhone, iPad
Price: $0.99

Apparently, the game’s developer, Rovio Entertainment, saw this happen and did not approve, so it spent the next few years trying to come up with a way to get holdouts like me to buy in to its anti-pig propaganda machine. And so we received Angry Birds Star Wars, a dangerous cocktail of addictive, deceptively simple, physics-driven gameplay and just straight-up, unabashed nerditude. It was in many ways the perfect mobile game: accessible to everyone and irresistible to giant geeks like myself. But still, I resisted.

Now Angry Birds Star Wars II is out, however, I’m totally in.

Angry Birds Star Wars II
Some levels have you taking advantage of an object’s gravity to make your shots go all goofy.

In case you’ve never played an Angry Birds game before, the premise is simple: Pigs steal bird eggs, birds with different special abilities become agitated and launch themselves suicidally out of giant slingshots in a quest to destroy precarious structures and murder every pig they can. Angry Birds Star Wars and its sequel are exactly like that, but the birds look like Star Wars characters. If you’re not on board yet, you probably never will be.

ABSWII (pronounced “AB-swee”) does have one major thing going against it: its levels are set in the crappy prequel universe. But if you can get past that, it’s the same simple-but-intense pig-slaying extravaganza that’s been around all these years. But, you know, way nerdier.

It’s Angry Birds plus Star Wars plus playing as Darth Vader.

How much nerdier? In a first for the franchise, ABSWII lets you play as the pigs, which means you get to play as Darth Vader. And if you want a bunch of dorks to line up, tell them they get to play as Darth Vader. They won’t even care if it’s just for one level like in the midichlorian-drenched console title Star Wars: The Force Unleashed.

Well played, Rovio. I’m slow-clapping right now, and I hope the readers will pick it up.

It’s hard to figure out what else to say, really; it’s Angry Birds plus Star Wars plus playing as Darth Vader. If any one of those things appeals to you, you’re going to have a great time.



Angry Birds Star Wars IIGame Name: : Angry Birds Star Wars II
The Good: Killing pigs is as fun as ever, and now you can also kill birds with a lightsaber. What’s not to like?
The Bad: Set during Episodes I – III.
The Verdict: Angry Birds and Star Wars nerds alike will find plenty to like here.
Buy from: App Store

[rating=game5]

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