Yeah, I know. Angry Birds Stars Wars. It sounds like something Satan concocted in the bowels of Hell itself. The classic Star Wars you know and love mashed up with those freaking birds you see plastered on (almost literally) every product in your local Wal-Mart. Hell, one time PXT member extraordinaire Samantha saw a kid with the red bird buzzed into the back his hair. That's neither here nor there though. What happens when LucasArts gets their Star Wars in Rovio's Angry Birds and when Rovio gets their Angry Birds in LucasArts' Star Wars?
Honestly it's kind of delicious. Not in a glorious mouth-watering steak dinner kind of way, but in like, a Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cups (to continue the peanut butter and chocolate theme I started; not quite a whole Resse's though) kind of way. Once you get over the general icky-ness of seeing stuff like a triangular avian Han Solo, the game is actually sort of fun and clever. This Our Valued Customers comic kind of helped me put in in perspective.
[caption id="attachment_3812" align="aligncenter" width="717"]
There's also plenty more of these at the Our Valued Customers site, by the way.[/caption]See Star Wars kind of already jumped the "commercial bullshit" shark a long, long time ago. Han Solo has had a dance off with Lando Calrissian in Cloud City. There's a straight to video Family Guy episode for every movie in the original trilogy. I think Robot Chicken has had at least thirty Star Wars specials at this point, so many that Seth Green is sort of making an entire show of just that. Three words: Jar Jar Binks. Angry Birds Star Wars by comparison is nowhere near the worst thing that ever happened to Star Wars. Don't cry for it, it's already dead (although hopefully Disney will breathe life into it when it releases that 7th film).
Now that we've covered why ABSW is okay to enjoy, why exactly is it so enjoyable? Well, honestly it really leverages both franchises it just that right way. The Star Wars-y themed special moves the birds have are actually pretty cool from a gameplay perspective and from a "neat Star Wars stuff perspective. Han's blaster (which you can shoot during your bird's flight and aim by touching the screen where you want to fire) is a cool move that suits the theme. Using Luke's lightsaber to slice through some debris to get to a pig dressed like a Tusken Raider is pretty cool. The bird's powers also increase as you movie throughout the story, helping to tell the tale of Star Wars in it's own, weird, video game-y kind of way. Luke starts out as the generic red bird, then when he meets Obi Wan he gains the lightsaber skill. Obi Wan has the ability to force push objects, but that gets even more powerful after you confront Lord Vader ("You can't win, Vader. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine."). It's actually a fairly clever twist on the Angry Birds formula.
Not that the game is completely flawless, mind you. The kind of obnoxious, trial and error, fling a bird, mess up, push retry gameplay of every Angry Birds title is still there and some of the ground Tatooine levels are a little uninspired. Things get more interesting once you get into space and it starts to play like Angry Birds Space (which I actually sort of liked too) and in the Death Star level where you deal with Darth Vader's dark force powers and they actually do a cool little homage to the trash compacter scene.
The graphics won't surprise you, it pretty much looks like all the other AB games with a Star Wars coat of paint. Some of the character designs are quite a bit off putting (like the aforementioned triangular Han, and the weird Obi Wan/Bomb Bird combination) but then again some of the other designs are actually quite appealing (like the Chewie bird and the Tusken Raider piggies). it's a mixed bag. Sound and music on the other hand is great, with all the appropriate Star Wars themes blaring at the right time and the perfect and iconic Star Wars sound effects all over the place. I don't know what it is, but from blaster fire to droid bleeps and bloops, the sound effects of Star Wars, almost more than anything else, well up a nice warm nostalgic feeling in me.
When you get right down to it, Angry Birds Star Wars is surprisingly enjoyable. I downloaded it expecting to just blast the crap out of it in a review, but after playing it for a few hours it definitely won me over. It pokes all the right Star Wars buttons without being overly obnoxious or pander-y, and puts enough twists on the Angry Birds formula to not feel stale or unnecessary. I can't believe I'm saying this, but go for it, download Angry Birds Star Wars.
Then again, maybe that creepy Obi Wan bird used the 'ol Jedi mind trick on me. "You don't need to hate Angry Birds Star Wars."
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