Here is what you can do with your Xperia Z, but you probably won't
The upcoming Sony Xperia Z is not only a beautiful phone, but it’s also pretty tough to break down. This has been confirmed by one of those always cool to watch torture videos, which shows the Xperia Z survive various trials to prove that it’s worthy of being your daily driver.
The video contains different scenarios (some of them a pretty ridiculous), and even if it’s a little disgusting, it’s still pretty fun to watch. The great news is the Sony Xperia Z survived everything it was put through.
I don’t know about you but I will certainly consider getting it when it comes out. All that water in the video made me wanting to take this phone to an aqua park next summer and test its water resistance properly. It should at least make for a cool story.
Fond of minimalist but ridiculously challenging games? Here’s another one for you. Created by Marcus Persson, the guy who made the insanely popular Minecraft, Drop is a browser-based game that will test your familiarity with your keyboard and your patience.
The premise of the game is simple. You have a constant stream of letters appearing before you and you have to type the letters on your keyboard. Enter it correctly and you can move on to the next letter. You can retry if you entered it wrong but since the letters are constantly moving towards you, you only have a limited amount of time before the game is over. The letters that appear aren’t at random as they might seem but are actually words and the game gets a bit easier once you figure the entire word out.
Drop pairs this simple gameplay with minimalist visuals and sound that the developer admits is inspired from Super Hexagon, among other games. You will need to install the Unity Engine plugin on your computer before being able to play it, which is a bit of a hassle but thankfully the game is worth it.
One word of warning, though. The game is very addictive and you’re bound to spend much longer playing it than you anticipated. So make sure you finish whatever it is you’re doing before you start playing. You’ll also need to be quite familiar with your keyboard to play this game. If not, you’ll end up becoming anyway.
HTC One will be able to import data from iPhone backups
HTC confirmed it is working on a new HTC Sync app that will be able to import data from iPhone backups to the upcoming HTC One flagship.
It’s still unclear if this process will work on other (or older) HTC handsets as well.
The new Sync app will be able to extract photos, videos, contacts, calendars and text messages. The current version of HTC Sync is available on both Windows and Mac OS and has a tiny iTunes support for music management. I guess this feature might become even more developed in the new HTC Sync.
Anyway there is still no official info on this, but I hope HTC makes it work on more handsets, not just the One.
Amazon released Cloud Drive Photos app for Android with 5GB of free storage
Amazon has just launched the Cloud Drive Photos app in the Google Play Store. It’s free and can be installed on any device running Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread or higher.
With this app you can easily upload photos from your Android devices and computers to the Amazon cloud. You can also easily share those photos to various social services, via email, etc.
Amazon gives you 5GB of free storage for your photos.
Unfortunately, the app doesn’t offer automatic camera upload along the lines of Dropbox. Hopefully a future update will see to it.
Today HTC announced a new addition to their CDMA smartphone lineup, the EVO Shift 4G. The full QWERTY-packing Android smartphone comes with a 3.6” LCD screen of WVGA resolution. The 4G moniker and the Sprint allegiance give away the EVO Shift WiMax radio, but you should know that there’s also EV-DO support for when the new generation networks aren’t available.
The HTC EVO Shift 4G packs a Qualcomm MSM7630 CPU, clocked at 800 MHz and a 5 megapixel camera capable of HD video recording. The rest of its key features include 3.5mm audio jack, Wi-Fi, GPS and a microSD card slot. The EVO Shift 4G will ship with Android 2.2 (Froyo) an there’s no information yet whether a 2.3 (Gingerbread) update will come.
The bad news is that the HTC EVO Shift 4G is a Sprint-exclusive so your only chance of getting it involves living in the US and being fine with signing a long-term contract costing north of $70 per month. The price of the handset itself is $150 after a $100 mail-in rebate.
Images of Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Golden Brown color surface
Samsung officially announced its Galaxy Tab 3 8.0 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 earlier this the week. At the announcement, the Koreans only confirmed white color option, but now the images of the Golden Brown variant of both slates have leaked courtesy of the popular evleaks. Twitter account.
To recap the specifications of Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 8.0, the tablet comes with an 8-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels. The slate features a 1.5 GHz dual-core processor along with 1.5 GB of RAM, 5 megapixel rear camera, 1.3 megapixel front shooter, 16/32 GB inbuilt memory, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, 4,450mAh battery and a wide range of connectivity option.
Images of Samsung Galaxy 3 10.1 Golden Brown
On the other hand, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 sports a 10.1-inch display with a 1280 x 800 pixel resolution. The tablet features a faster 1.6 GHz dual-core processor, 1 GB of RAM, 3 megapixel camera, Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and a 6,800mAh battery.
Unfortunately, there is no official word on the availability of these latest hues, but we expect the new shades to be launched shortly after the slates hit the shelves.
Angry Birds available for WebOS, may become a movie franchise
Hollywood has been trying to do video game based movies for a while without much success. But what if they take a game that’s extremely popular on mobile platforms and turn it into a series of shorts?
The creators of Angry Birds, Rovio, are looking to do just that and they have already been approached by several studios. Oh and by the way, Angry Birds has added WebOS to the list of supported platforms…
The Rovio team has been considering various ways to expand the Angry Birds franchise into films. They are looking at cartoons made for TV or maybe even a full-blown movie. Rovio’s CEO, Mikael Hed, says he prefers claymation a la Aardman Animation (the guys behind Wallace and Gromit and others).
It may take three years to develop a feature film, so if they go this way it will be a while before we see Angry Birds: The Movie. But if they go for shorts like the game trailer they posted on YouTube things can go faster.
Angry Birds has been a smash hit on the iPhone and now it will try to conquer the WebOS world. It’s currently available in the Palm App Catalog but you’ll need WebOS 1.4.5 to run it, which is currently available for Sprint devices only.
I really enjoyed Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, so an Angry Birds movie by Aardman sounds great. As for the WebOS port I’m not so sure – wouldn’t Android have been a better choice (it was supposed to come out this summer)?
Angry Birds Seasons gets The Year of the Dragon update for iOS, Android and others coming soon
Angry Birds Seasons The Year of the Dragon update is here at last and it starts off as an iOS exclusive.
Users get 15 new levels filled with lanterns, fireworks, Chinese knots, the lot. The Mighty Eagle add-on is transformed into the (wait for it) Mighty Dragon and is free on iOS, Android and Symbian^3 (ordinarily it costs around $0.99).
Android, Symbian^3, Mac and PC will be getting the update soon and there’s also a new animation and comic in the works.
And here’s that teaser trailer of the update that surfaced a week ago.
Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 US goes on pre-order at BestBuy, starts at $470
The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 pre-orders in the US have begun, as BestBuy started listing two versions of the Android 3.1 Honeycomb slate. The 16GB Wi-Fi-only version of the 8.9″ droid goes for $470, while the units with 32GB of storage cost $570.
The estimated arrival time of your orders is listed as September 25th to September 26th , so the tablets are probably already on their way to BestBuy stores around the US. Unfortunately the 3G-enabled version is nowhere to be seen at this stage, but it should come up eventually.
We did find the Galaxy Tab 8.9 quite nice in our preview, striking a good balance between portability and usability, so the pricing seems quite good. Yet, with the Galaxy Tab 7.7 and its super impressive Super AMOLED just around the corner we’d suggest those of you that aren��t in a great hurry to wait and compare the two, before making their choice.
In a brief video, taken “behind the scenes” of the Acer Aspire R7 product film, Acer is hinting not one but several new devices to be revealed.
The Acer Global Press Conference will be held on June 3rd at the Computex event in Taipei, during which we should behold several new tablets from the Taiwanese manufacturer.
Check out the full spot here:
It’s unknown whether their lead device will be of the Android or Windows 8 variety, but it’s rumored that it’s set to feature the latter, complete with Intel’s Haswell chipset. The tablet will also supposedly feature an 11.6-inch display of 2560 x 1440 pixels resolution, Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of RAM and an 8MP camera.
Be sure to check back with us on the 3rd for all the latest on Acer from Computex.
LiveMap is an Android-powered motorbike helmet that puts Google Glass to shame
Android is known to be one of, if not the most, diverse mobile operating systems out there powering everything from mobile devices through washing machines and microwaves to Google Glass. Now, there’s a project posted on IndieGoGo aimed towards creating a helmet that runs Android and if it takes off it will give Glass a run for its money.
The LiveMap motorbike helmet will use the visor for augmented reality and will display anything from turn-by-turn navigation, current the speed to nearby points of interest. It’ll support 4G LTE connectivity, too as well as a handful of sensors including G-sensor, gyroscope, digital compass for head movement tracking.
To keep the party running, there’s a duo of 3000 mAh batteries. They’ll be used to project a full-color, translucent picture on the visor.
The project has some serious backing right from the get-go – Moscow Department of Science, Industrial Policy and Enterprise; the State Foundation for Assistance to Small Innovative Enterprises in Science and Technology of Russian Federation; and the Skolkovo Foundation all have declared their support for the Android-running helmet.
Here’s a lengthy 7-minute video of the LiveMap Android helmet that tells the whole story behind the project.
We’ll see if the project will be able to raise the needed $150,000 by July 12, when is the end date for the fundraising campaign. If it succeeds, the helmet will debut in the US, Canada and Australia next year, while Europe and Japan to follow in 2015.
Benchmarks reveal unannounced Tegra 4 devices - HP SlateBook 10 X2 and HP SlateBook 21 AiO, and a 10-incher by Toshiba
It looks like both HP and Toshiba are working on devices powered by NVIDIA’s Tegra 4 chipset. HP has two – a tablet and an All-in-One computer – and Toshiba has at least one tablet (that we know of). The trio was discovered in AnTuTu benchmarks.
The HP tablet is called HP SlateBook 10 X2 and packs a 10” screen with FullHD resolution. It ran Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean at the time of benchmarking.
The Tegra 4 chipset had its four Cortex-A15 CPU cores clocked at 1.8GHz and scored an impressive 27,259 on AnTuTu. The chipset also has a fifth power-saver core (it’s a homebrewed setup, not ARM’s big.LITTLE).
Then there’s the All in One – the HP SlateBook 21 AiO. This device runs Android 4.2.1 and was also powered by a Tegra 4 at 1.8GHz but scored lower, 23,584. This is likely due to the higher resolution of the screen (unfortunately, resolution is unknown).
This is likely a similar setup to the Asus Transformer AiO we saw at the MWC, which ran Windows 8 on an Intel Core processor and Android on a secondary Tegra 3 chipset inside.
The Toshiba tablet is labeled just AT10LE-A, presumably a 10” tablet. It ran Android 4.2.1 on a 1.8GHz Tegra 4 chipset and scored a little higher than its HP counterpart, 28,058.
Archos officially announces 8-inch, 9.7-inch and 11.6-inch Platinum tablets
Archos made its new line up of Platinum tablets official. And yes, the name does sound familiar as one of them was even showcased at CES last month, but obviously the French manufacturer consider that unofficial. Anyway, all the latest tablets in the Platinum range have high-end hardware and mid-range pricing so they might turn out to be quite interesting offerings.
As expected, all the tablets will be powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor with 8-core GPU along with 2GB of RAM. They will all offer rear and front cameras, HDMI and microSD support. The slates will run on Android 4.1 Jelly Bean at launch.
Archos Platinum range of tablets consists of an 8″ Archos 80 Platinum, which has a screen of 1024×768 pixel resolution. Archos 80 Platinum will be priced at $199 in the US, ��179 in the UK, �199 in Europe and the tablet will be available by the end of the month.
The Archos 97 Platinum sports a 9.7″ display with 2048×1536 pixel density – the exact same specs as the iPad Retina screen. The Archos 97 Platinum will go on sale along with the Archos 80 and the tablet will carry a price tag of $299 in US, ��249 in UK and �269 in Europe.
The last tablet in the Platinum range is the 11.6″ Archos 116 Platinum, which boosts a 1920×1080 IPS display. Archos 116 will be available from April and will cost you $349 in US, ��299 in UK and �349 in Europe.
Galaxy Mini and Gio Gingerbread firmware leaked, for those without patience
The good folks at SamFirmware have gotten their hands on the Gingerbread firmware for the Samsung S5570 Galaxy Mini and S5660 Galaxy Gio. The firmware runs on Android 2.3.3 update and is dated May 7 and June 2 respectively.
Now Samsung has already announced that they will be releasing a Gingerbread update for these phones. But if you are feeling particularly impatient, you can head over to the source link and install them on your phone. Do note that these firmware are in beta and not the same as the one that Samsung will officially release. So we would suggest that you show some restrain and wait for it.
Samsung is now among the Top 10 most valuable brands for 2012, Apple takes second place
The investment Samsung makes in the marketing of its two latest Android flagships, the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II has paid off not only in massive sales, but also in boosting the brand’s worth, shooting it among the top 10 most valuable in the world.
According to Interbrand’s 13th annual Best Global Brands report, Samsung, for the first time in its history, finds its place in the Top 10 of the prestigious ranking. In fact, it’s now considered the 9th most valuable brand on the planet and is estimated to be worth $32.8 billion.
Samsung’s value has increased by 40% since the company became the world’s largest smartphone and mobile phone manufacturer. Moreover, the aggressive marketing campaign and the buzz the Koreans have generated around the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II has also helped them boost their value.
At the other end of the list is Apple cozily taking second place right below Coca-Cola. Valued at $76.5 billion, the Apple brand has made an incredible 129% jump in value compared to last year.
BlackBerry Playbook announced - the dual-core tablet to rule them all
RIM might be having a bit of hard time adapting their smartphones to the rapidly changing market but it might turn out that it’s all because they have been focusing their efforts elsewhere. The company just entered the tablet market with a bang, announcing their 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook, running a new BlackBerry Tablet OS.
Coming with a SVGA (1024 x 600 pixels) multi-touch capacitive touchscreen, the PlayBook is the first tablet to sport a dual-core 1GHz CPU. And it makes quite good use of it too – both the front-facing and the primary camera of the device are capable of recording full HD video (yeap, that’s sweet 1080p footage) and on board the PlayBook has what RIM calls “true multitasking”. And with 1GB of RAM you are unlikely to have “out of memory” issues either.
But it doesn’t end there – there’s also Flash 10.1 and HTML5 support, microHDMI and microUSB ports and Wi-Fi a/b/g/n support. The primary camera can also take 5 megapixel stills, while the secondary one does 3MP. Secure Bluetooth connection is here too with 3G the only notable absentee. RIM are however promising 3G and even 4G versions of the tablet too.
All that goodness is packed in a body only 10mm thin and weighing 400 grams. Oh boy, is that exciting or what? Check out the official promo video of the new tablet.
Now for the bad news – the PlayBook won’t hit the market until early 2011 and the worldwide availability is coming in Q2 2011.
Unfortunately we are still unaware of the target pricing of the PlayBook.
Microsoft take UK retailer Comet to task over claims of producing and selling 94,000 bootlegged Windows CDs
UK-based electrical retailer Comet have incurred the wrath of the big ‘M’ over in Redmond, Washington.
Microsoft are presently taking legal action against Comet following allegations of the production and sale of bootlegged copies of both Windows XP and Windows Vista recovery CDs.
Microsoft Corp. today began proceedings against Comet Group PLC for allegedly creating more than 94,000 recovery CDs which were then sold onto customers who had purchased Windows-loaded PCs and laptops in their retail stores.
Microsoft’s David Finn, associate general counsel of Worldwide Anti-Piracy and Anti-Counterfeiting, stated that “Comet’s actions were unfair to customers. We expect better from retailers of Microsoft products — and our customers deserve better, too.”
Comet on the other hand argue that they were doing their customers a service, creating and distributing the disks as in recent years, manufacturers have done away with providing bundled recovery CDs with new computers in favor of creating special partitions on hard drives, so users may create a disk in their own time if they so wish.
Comet’s official statement is as follows: “Comet firmly believes that it acted in the very best interests of its customers. It believes its customers had been adversely affected by the decision to stop supplying recovery disks with each new Microsoft Operating System-based computer. Accordingly, Comet is satisfied that it has a good defense to the claim and will defend its position vigorously.”
The ‘dodgy’ disks were apparently produced at a factory in the English county of Hampshire and then distributed to Comet’s 250 retail stores. The company are currently in the process of changing hands, being sold by French parent retail company Kesa Electricals PLC to London-based investment capital firm OpCapita LLP. As such, a costly legal battle is the last thing the company would want, given their current delicate financial situation.
So who do you think are in the wrong? Comet for producing and profiting from software originally created by Microsoft, or Microsoft for berating a company trying to provide a service that they know many of their consumers will appreciate. Leave us your comments below.
ACTA gets rejected by the International Trade Committee, the European Parliament gets the last word
Remember ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)? This is the European version of SOPA and PIPA which were threatening to impose censorship on the Internet.
Great news came in today, as the International Trade Committee (ITC) has rejected ACTA with 19 votes against and 12 in favor. The faith of ACTA will eventually be decided by the European Parliament in the first week of July.
Considering that its Members take ITC’s decision as a final recommendation, the odds of ACTA passing through and threatening the existence of the Internet as we know it are close to zero. The “Trade Agreement” met a strong opposition from various EU committees and every country in Europe because of its invasion on privacy and vagueness.
Watch the new Game of Thrones teaser, the third season is inching closer
The highly successful TV series Game of Thrones by HBO is getting ready for its third season on the small (or big) screen of your TV. The new teaser is here and it’s three times longer than the one released back in December.
That said, it’s irritatingly short as it only runs for 45 seconds. Yeah, I hate teasers, I am more of a trailer type of guy. But I digress. The first episode of the new season will be aired on March 31.
I searched around and it turns out the song sung in the background is called The Rains of Castamere. According to the fansite Wiki of Ice and Fire, in the fictitious world of Westeros this song is typically sung as a reminder of the fate that awaits those who cross the Lannisters. Creepy!
I don’t know about you, but March cannot come soon enough for me.
Toshiba's ultra thin Honeycomb tablet reveals itself days before it launch
When we had a brief, close encounter with the Toshiba Thrive Honeycomb tablet a couple of months ago in New York, we came out quite impressed with the slate except for its weight and looks. It appears that Toshiba’s second take on an Android Honeycomb device is about to fix those issues in a sweeping fashion. Today, we have a few shots of a yet unannounced Toshiba tablet, which looks more than promising.
As you can see from the picture above, the device in question is a 10″ tablet which, compared to the Toshiba Thrive, can be easily classified as ultra thin, and significantly better looking. The full size connectivity and SD cards slots have been replaced with their micro sized counterparts, allowing the new slate to be half as thick as the Thrive.
The back of the upcoming device will be with a brushed metal finish – a serious departure from the textured plastic of the Thrive, and an attempt to get the new slate into the Apple iPad realm in terms of design.
There is no info on the tablet’s specs at the moment, save for the rumor that it will be significantly faster than the Toshiba Thrive. The new slate is expected to be released in a few days, when IFA 2011 kicks off in Berlin. I hope that the mysterious and good looking Toshiba tablet will not follow the fate of the Folio 100, which we met at the IFA last year, but got cancelled afterwards.
Bad Piggies is a complete departure from Rovio’s award winning Angry Birds series. After letting you play as the birds for almost three years now, you will now get to play as the pigs for the first time.
But you won’t be doing any flinging in this game. Other than the main characters of the game, Bad Piggies shares nothing with Angry Birds and is a complete departure in terms of gameplay. We decided to take a look and see just how bad the piggies really are.
Title
Bad Piggies
Developer
Rovio Entertainment Ltd.
Rovio Mobile Ltd.
Platform
iOS
Android
Content rating
4+
Low Maturity
Size
40.9MB / 41.3MB
34MB
Price
$0.99 / $2.99
Free (with ads)
The Premise
The pigs are making plans to capture the eggs from the birds. Unfortunately, the plans were blown away by the wind and the pigs have to get them all back. They have some objects at their disposal and your job is to assemble a vehicle to transport them to the plans.
Gameplay
In terms of gameplay, Bad Piggies is closer to Amazing Alex than Angry Birds. In each level, you have a single pig and you have to assemble a vehicle around him to transport him to the goal at the end of the level. In each level, you get a bunch of objects that you have to arrange in a grid to form the vehicle.
The object include boxes, wheels, rockets, balloons, TNT, umbrellas, etc. Each of them have a specific purpose. The boxes form the frame of the vehicle and everything has to be attached to them. The wheels, of course, facilitate motion. Propulsion devices, such as fans, rockets, bellows, soda bottles, etc. help propel the vehicle to make it go faster or climb up a slope. Umbrellas act as your brakes. Balloons lift the vehicle and sandbags weight it down as long as you want. TNT, when denoted correctly, lets you shoot the pig in a particular direction and achieve greater height than otherwise would be possible. At times you get objects such as motors, that don’t do anything on their own but combined with something like the fan makes the vehicle move faster.
You can access the in-game tips to see how you can use the objects you have at your disposal. Once you assemble the vehicle, you hit the button and the level begins. Depending upon the objects you have, you get buttons on screen to activate or deactivate them. You can, for example, switch the fans on or off, open or close the umbrellas or pop the balloons as required.
There are multiple goals in the level but the main one is always the plans at the end of the level. You need to get there to finish the level and for other achieved goals to count. Other goals include stars that you can collect, reaching the plans before the timer runs out and not using a specific object in a level.
Unlike Angry Birds, you don’t have to collect all stars at once. You can, for example, choose to finish the level before the timer runs out thus getting one star for it, plus one more for finishing the level. After that, you can replay the level and instead of having to finish it in time, you can go after the stars that might be scattered across the level. Once you finish the level with the stars, your previous star for finishing the level on time stays and you also get a new star for collecting it in the level. This way you can collect a maximum of three stars per level. The more stars you collect, the more levels you unlock in the game.
There are three modes in Bad Piggies. The first is ‘Ground Hog’, where you build vehicles that stay on the ground. The second is ‘When Pigs Fly’, that involves building flying vehicles, consisting of balloons, wings and propellers. The third is ‘Sand Box’, where there are no plans to collect but just to build massive contraptions that can go across the enormous levels and collect all the stars.
So how is the game to play? Well, it’s a bit slow and takes a while to become truly interesting. The initial levels are fairly easy and not very interesting. You need to spend some time with the game and unlock more objects before you get involved in it. Once more objects get unlocked the levels start becoming more and more fun. Eventually you will find yourself playing the levels again and again to get all three stars.
Assembling the vehicles can be fairly challenging. You have to take into consideration the objects you have been provided, the grid in which you can arrange them and the terrain you will be traversing. Needless to say, there is a fair amount of trial and error involved and you will find yourself building and refining your designs again and again until you find one that gets the job done. In many of the levels there is no one particular way that you can build a vehicle. You could place things differently and still get similar results.
You can’t get too creative with the positioning, though. The game relies heavily on physics and the placement of each object has repercussions. Place everything on one end of the vehicle and you will unbalance it, making it tilt on slopes. The propulsion objects need to be placed such that they all fire in one direction and they shouldn’t all be on one side or the vehicle will spin like a top in one place. Once you grasp the physics of the objects and know what each does, building the vehicles becomes relatively easy.
If at all you do get stuck, the game helps you out by building the vehicle for you. You will still have to control it yourself after you start it but that’s the easy part. You can use the game’s help three times and if you want more you will have to purchase them using in-app purchasing.
Speaking of pricing, the iOS version of the game costs $0.99 on the iPhone and iPod touch whereas the iPad version costs $2.99. On Android, there are two versions, with one being optimized for HD displays, and both are free to download but have in-game ads that burn through your battery and look ugly. Unfortunately, there is no paid option available on Android at all, so even if you want to you can’t get rid of the ads.
Graphics and Sound
Bad Piggies feature the same visual style as Angry Birds, which is understandable as it comes from the same universe. However, while the Angry Birds visuals were filled with many objects and characters, the Bad Piggies world looks barren and desolate. This further adds to the general lack of excitement you get while playing the game, as you transport a lone pig through an empty world with nothing but the sound of the contraptions and the odd squeaks of the pig to keep you company. The game could have used jazzier environments to spice things up and look less drab.
The music in the game is pleasant but nothing that particularly stands out. There are couple of themes that play while you’re building your vehicles and another that plays once the level starts. The former is calm and engaging whereas the latter is fast and exciting. They get the job done but again, could have been better.
Conclusion
One of the best things I liked about Bad Piggies was that it wasn’t Angry Birds. That game was fun two years ago but has started getting long in the tooth and honestly, I doubt I can sit through another variant of that game. So kudos to Rovio for making a game from the same universe but without the same gameplay.
On its own, Bad Piggies is not all that bad and offers a fairly enjoyable experience. Its drawbacks are that it’s not particularly exciting, especially during the early levels and that itself could put off many people who wouldn’t go further from that point. Also, it lacks the pick up and play nature of Angry Birds, which is not a bad thing, but not a lot of people would want to spend time and mental energy thinking of the perfect vehicle design to get all the stars in the level. In Angry Birds, you can senselessly fling birds at the pigs and although you wouldn’t many stars you’d still finish it and go to the next one. That does not happen here. Even to finish the level you have to be fairly good at the game.
Lastly, the game is packaged in a dull wrapper, with boring visuals and a passable soundtrack that don’t do justice to the gameplay.
Eventually, you end up with a game that you really wanted to play but can’t go beyond a few levels. Especially when there are so many other good games to play out there.
Rating: 3.5/5 Pros: Challenging gameplay Cons: Initial missions are uninteresting, drab visual presentation makes the game seem more boring than it is, no ad-free version on Android
Download: iPhone / iPad | Android / Android HD
Note: We have only talked about the iOS and Android version here but an OS X version is also available. Moreover, the game is coming soon for Windows and Windows Phone 8.
