Angry Birds Star Wars

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1-2 Co-Op (Local Wireless), 2-4 Competitive (Local Wireless), StreetPass Compatible

Game Company Bad Behavior Profile Page: Activision Blizzard

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Review:

Angry Birds Star Wars is a family-friendly licensed spin-off of the popular Smartphone game released on PC and mobile devices in 2012 and ported to PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Wii U, and Nintendo 3DS in 2013. This game pairs the physics-based Arcade-style gameplay of the Angry Birds series with sound effects and musical cues from the Star Wars universe, as well as characters and locations that are a silly mash-up of the two.

The game still largely maintains the cartoonish 2D visual style of the Angry Birds series, and the way the Star Wars stuff is worked in is almost like the Angry Birds characters are cosplaying as Star Wars characters. This works almost like a cute licensed spoof of Star Wars, and visually looks good, although the relatively low resolution of the Nintendo 3DS does mean that the gameplay can look somewhat pixellated when zoomed out to see the full stage.

These visuals are joined by music in the menus and as “victory” music between stages that is clearly designed to sound like John Williams’ film score. The gameplay in stages themselves is largely silent, save for the frequent use of Star Wars’ signature sound effects.

As for the gameplay… well, with or without Star Wars, this is still an Angry Birds game. The premise of the game is that players are using a slingshot to fling cartoonish birds at structures housing green pigs (dressed as Tuscan Raiders, Stormtroopers, etc.), aiming to destroy the structures and ultimately cause enough damage to knock out the pigs contained within. As you proceed through the game, the structures you’ll need to take down become more elaborate, but you’ll also gain the use of additional types of birds with added abilities, with those abilities generally inspired by the Star Wars franchise (lightsabers, force push, etc.).

Much as with the smartphone versions of the games, players can opt to play these games using touchscreen controls to precisely gauge the angle and strength of your shot. Alternately, players can choose to use the analog stick and face buttons for this task. Both of these sets of controls work pretty well.

In terms of value, it’s hard to say for sure whether you’re getting a good deal here. On the one hand, there are numerous Angry Birds games available on smartphones at this point, many of them free (albeit with ads and/or microtransactions). Currently, if you’re looking to find this game on eBay, you’re going to be spending about $5 or so… but the other side of this argument is the fact that this specific entry in the franchise doesn’t seem to be available on mobile devices anymore, and having the option to use either touchscreen controls or more traditional gamepad controls is nice.

The other thing to note here is that Angry Birds Star Wars, like all games in the franchise, is a pretty simple game. This was designed to be something you could really quickly play a few rounds of while waiting at a bus stop or in a doctor’s office. It’s entertaining, but not especially deep. This, combined with the fact that you may very well already have this game (or one much like it) on your Smartphone means that there’s not much reason to get this game on Nintendo 3DS unless you specifically want to play it on a Nintendo 3DS. If that is the case, then this version of the game is sufficient, at least.

tl;dr – Angry Birds Star Wars is a family-friendly Star Wars-licensed version of the popular mobile phone game series, combining the series’ gameplay with Star Wars sounds and characters that look like a mash-up of the Angry Birds series’ characters and Star Wars’ popular characters. The option to play using either the touchscreen or traditional gamepad controls is nice, and this is a decent port, but one wonders if it’s one that’s worth buying when there’s a good chance you already have Angry Birds in some form on your phone.

Grade: C+

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