When the first Angry Birds game was released in 2009, it was a huge hit. Friends, family, and coworkers all excitedly asked whether you’ve played it yet, and you could barely leave your house without spotting some sort of Angry Birds merchandise. Today, 6 years after the original game was released, you can buy the sequel on your iOS or Android phone.
There have been 11 versions of the game in between the two releases and three spin-offs, but Rovio is calling this one the “sequel,” referring to it as Angry Birds 2 rather than Angry Birds 13. People are curious about this decision, so Patrick Liu, Rovio’s creative director, explained their reasoning: “This is such a big step forward in terms of the gameplay and how the game looks that it justified the name of number 2. So it wasn’t really planned like that, it just came naturally when we realized how big of a step it was forward.”
Early reviews of the game have been positive, for the most part. Players seem to enjoy the updated animation and the addition of multiple stage levels. Most of the negative reviewers are irked about the new life-system and in-app purchases. They see it as a way for the company to just make more money (some seem quite surprised that they didn’t make the game simply to benefit the public).