Angry Birds Easter is out!

That is all. Go forth and update your Angry Birds Seasons app for the most aptly themed special holiday installment yet!

Angry Birds Rio is out!

Hooray! Angry Birds Rio released this morning! March has been a great month for Angry Birds fans, with new "Ham 'Em High" levels for Angry Birds and the St. Patrick's Day edition of Angry Birds Seasons already released. Now a whole new game?

Rio is much like the franchise's previous incarnations, except with a new setting and a new mission—instead of merely bombing pigs, the angry birds are liberating smuggled parrots in Brazil! Oh and bombing monkeys.

The paid version has lots of new levels and the promise of even more to come in the next few months. There's also an animated movie set to release next month (the game is a tie-in) by the people who did Ice Age. Imagine if Pixar had jumped on that deal? That would have been amazing…though the movie probably wouldn't be ready until well after the Angry Birds craze has faded.

So go forth and download! Who wanted to get anything done today, anyhow?

WARNING: Turn your volume down a bit before watching the trailer—it's loud.

Gasp! Angry Birds Seasons update: Valentine's!

The flouncy get-up doesn't detract from 

how constipated the birds often appear.

Hey, there's a new Angry Birds Seasons update out now—Valentine's Day! Available for both Apple and Droid. At first the fact that all the birds have been feminized with eyelashes and blush and bows seemed a bit patronizing, but then I decided they were just in drag. I mean, the egg-laying bird isn't normally feminine-looking, so this must be a flamboyant cross-dressing transformation. That, or I'm too focused on makeup this month. Or, I'm thinking way too hard about animated birds. Either way, go forth and download!

I haven't dug into it yet (I still have a bunch of regular Angry Birds levels to catch up on) but apparently this update includes a special Super Bowl-themed level…please please please, validate my Superb Owl fixation! Frankly, I'm already dying to see what Easter brings, given how contentious the whole egg-poaching issue is for those guys.

Angry Birds Seasons for Apple!

More Angry Birds, you say? If you're already a fan, you may have heard that Rovio released the Christmas-themed Angry Birds game for Droid devices yesterday, leaving us Apple weenies to fret and sniffle and wait while the game was made to jump through Apple's many annoying corporate hoops before the app could be accepted and made available via their sanctioned channels. But now it's here! And if you purchased Angry Birds Halloween, the new Christmas installment won't cost you a cent, merely a free update download. I've just snagged it for my iPad, and each day a new level is unlocked, advent-calendar-style. Sigh. At least with a real advent calendar, you can cheat and gorge yourself on all the chocolate in one day. The genius game developers at Rovio seem to think we ought to practice a bit more self-control, though, and since they've provided me with so much joy, I guess I shan't grumble about it.

More info about Angry Birds Seasons for Apple here.

Angry Birds…Halloween!

Just as I was lamenting finishing Angry Birds, what does Rovio do but come out with a special Halloween installment! And not just a few measly holiday-themed screens, but an entire episode (as the game calls its collections of levels).

Let me back up. For those who don't know what Angry Birds is, it's the awesomest game I've played in a long time…well, since Machinarium. Which wasn't all that long ago. But it's way different than that! I explained it a bit in an older post so I won't go into it here, except to say that if you've got an iPhone or iPad, go and get it now! The App Store charges a pittance for it, and I suspect that when the Android version is released it'll be free, much the way the original game was. Here's a little taste of its spooktasticalz:

Angry Birds

The manfriend and I have discovered something new to do in bed as a couple, and it kept us up well past our bedtimes last night.

It's called Angry Birds, and it's simply the awesomest game ever for the iPad. I have certain standards for video games. I don't like being shot at too much. I don't like games where there's pressure on me to do things quickly or with great coordination. I don't like games that take themselves too seriously. Nothing too gory. Or mindless. I like puzzle and strategy games, basically. My favorite from childhood is a pyramid exploration game for the Macintosh called Scarab of Ra. Shadowgate was cool too, but the torch burning down stressed me out. Favorite finds of the past few years have been the perplexingly awesome Katamari Damacy, the Rhem games (similar to Myst), and Machinarium. Holy crap. Machinarium. So wondrous. If you're reading this, you probably have a computer, so you can download and play it. Do so now! Or at least play the free demo. If it weren't enough that it's fun and challenging, it's utterly gorgeous. Great way to pass a blizzardy indoor weekend this winter.

But I'm getting off topic. Angry Birds! Yes, the fact that its heroes are round birds doesn't hurt its case for me. But beyond that it's just super simple and fun and addictive. It's available for the iPad, iPhone, and a beta version is available for some non-Apple smart phones. If you buy the full HD version it'll cost you as much as a glass of wine and it's worth every penny, plus a two-dollar tip.

Basically, you slingshot little round cartoon birds at funky constructions made of wood, ice, and stone, trying to vanguish smug green pigs. There's a bit of strategy to it, because you have to do some reasoning to figure out which bit of the structure to target. Here's the one-minute trailer:



But even if that looks fun, it's not even a quarter as fun as actually playing it. I can't vouch for the gaming experience on a phone, but if you have an iPad, I highly recommend you download it. If you don't love it, there's something wrong with you.