That's the central issue with this re-packaging. You can own these three casual apps for a collective $2.97 in the iOS App Store and for even less on Android. And you likely already do, considering how prolifically distributed these designs have been across mobile platforms and the millions upon millions of units sold. So with Angry Birds Trilogy Rovio's really hoping that you'll want to buy the same content you've already experienced again and pay about 1,333% more for the privilege.
Well, only an even 1,000% more on 3DS. That one's retailing for $30.
It's not the most exciting value proposition. It's so comparatively expensive, in fact, that I'm confident most previous players of these games will simply look at the price tag, chuckle, and go right back to their iPhones. Which is a shame since, pricepoint aside, Trilogy offers a compelling and complete package that's packed with enticing enhancements to its cellular source material.
If you're somehow still unfamiliar with Angry Birds – which, at this point, means you must have been actively trying not to experience it – here's the refresher on the basics. A group of greedy green pigs have egg-napped our titular flock's underborn baby birds and retreated to the safety of haphazard shelters built from wood, stone and ice blocks where they hope to enjoy some ill-gotten omelets. The birds, angry, fling themselves face-first against the walls of these structures using a giant slingshot in order to bust through to the porkers inside and rescue their offspring.It's a funny premise, and it frames an addictive, physics-based design. You have to properly angle each shot from the sling, trying to make each bird you launch either connect with a pig to destroy it directly, or else topple some part of the surrounding walls, so that they'll fall over, land on a pig and destroy it indirectly. A rating of up to three stars ranks your performance at the end of each brief level, with extra points awarded if you accomplished total pig destruction without using all of your available birds.The game's variety comes from the different types of birds and bird abilities you're given to work with. Red birds are the most basic – they simply fly from the slingshot with no special effects. Blue birds split into three smaller birds in mid-air, spreading out their destruction over a wider area. Yellow birds get a burst of extra speed, black birds explode like a bomb on impact, white birds drop eggs that themselves act as bombs ... and so on and so forth. The pigs set up increasingly elaborate safehouses, you attack them with some subset of different bird types, and the game continues until you either get tired of playing or you get an incoming phone call.
Well, that was the way it worked as a mobile game anyway. On the big screen, via the PS3 or 360, Angry Birds Trilogy won't ever be interrupted by a ringtone – and it feels different as a result. What was once a casual, occasional diversion you'd pull out of your pocket for a few minutes at a time now demands more direct, long-lasting attention as a console experience. That shift works in some ways, but not others.
Trilogy's visual presentation is one of its successes. These same old Angry Birds levels look better than they ever have before displayed on a huge HDTV. Interface upgrades are another advancement. The package adds in subtle but impactful extras like a quick retry option – if you see that you've flung your birds improperly and can't possible win, there's no need to call up a pause menu to reset the stage anymore. One button press (held for two seconds so you don't tap it accidentally) restarts the current level in an instant.And play control is another success – if, that is, you use a standard controller. Both the PS3 and 360 versions of Trilogy try to integrate their resident motion control solutions and both fall short. The PlayStation Move wand lets you play with one hand, directing an on-screen hand-shaped cursor to pinch and pull back on the slingshot. It kind of works, but lacks the precision you get from just using the analog stick on a normal pad – and menu navigation is often awkward and unresponsive, as the hand cursor's inputs sometimes go unrecognized.
Playing with Kinect, though, is about 15 orders of magnitude worse. It's abysmal. It's so frightfully difficult to get the sensor to properly interrupt your motions, that it almost crosses into "so bad it's funny" territory. Almost. I wouldn't recommend anyone try to seriously play Angry Birds with the Kinect – it's one of the worst control arrangements I've ever seen. And that's saying something. But if you've got some buddies over and you get a few drinks in you, it could be pretty hilarious watching people try to futilely gyrate themselves to successfully destroy even a single pig.
On the 3DS, meanwhile, Angry Birds Trilogy is a bit of a different animal. It can't match the console versions visually, as the screen size on Nintendo's handheld is smaller even than those on some of the mobile platforms Angry Birds originated on – and stereoscopic 3D adds very little to this flat, 2D art. It also lacks the quick restarts added to the big screen editions. But like the PS3 and 360 versions, Trilogy's sole handheld release has its own successes that counterbalance its drawbacks.The touch screen control is precise and agreeable, as the game utilizes the 3DS' lower screen for that purpose while keeping the full level displayed up above. The 3DS version's menu screens are also surprisingly detailed and kind of addictive to play in their own right, as there's a new mini-game integrated into the simple navigation through the menu screens. Each selectable option is initially encased in wood, and as you fling birds into them to select them, chunks of that wood break off and deal damage to a swinging birdcage displayed below. Do enough damage to that cage, then, and it breaks apart – releasing the bird inside.
That bird then becomes available in the 3DS-exclusive StreetPass mode. You record a silly song of random bird squawks and pig snorts, then send your freed feathered friend to fly to other 3DS systems and come back bearing treasures in his beak. It's a more interactive and inventive execution of StreetPass than we normally see – most often, 3DS titles simply ask "Do you want to turn StreetPass on?" and then move along, never to bring it up again.