Wild E. Coyote Would Be Proud

Posted 5 months ago By - Michael Dulson

The company who brought the world the hit Angry Birds franchise, its sequels, Amazing Alex, and the newly released Angry Birds Star Wars, also brings us a spin-off to Angry Birds, Bad Piggies. The spin-off features the titular Pigs in favor of the birds, but the gameplay is not the same as the bird swinging puzzler. Is Bad Piggies as good as Angry Birds or should you leave this bacon alone?

Bad Piggies starts out with a comic book style intro, like any Angry Birds title, showing the green meanies who have a map with the location of the bird’s eggs. They lose the map and it gets shredded, and now the pigs are off to get every piece of the map back. The art style and graphics are the same as Angry Birds - very bright and full of color - which I really like. Along with the graphics, I really enjoyed the music and audio in Bad Piggies because of how it gives the game a very cartoon-y feel to it, which works well for the title. The sound effects, such as the dynamite blowing up along with the vehicle falling apart, the pig screaming and hitting against a wall, sound like they were taken from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, and make the game very enjoyable.

"The long awaited spin-off to Angry Birds is a fun and creative experience."

The gameplay is what really makes Bad Piggies different from Angry Birds. Bad Piggies is a vehicle construction puzzle platformer (similar to the XBLA-exclusive Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts) with the physics of Angry Birds, and like Angry Birds, the game is based on a 3-star scoring system. I really enjoyed coming up with ridiculous contraptions. When the vehicle fails, it truly feels like an interactive Wild E Coyote cartoon, and when you succeed a level, it’s extremely satisfying since some of the levels can get repetitive. The controls are simple, you drag the pieces from the bottom of the screen to the building section in the middle and once your vehicle is ready to roll, fly, or explode, you tap on go and watch the mayhem and hilarity unfold. There is also a Sandbox mode, which gives you more freedom with bigger or longer levels and more pieces to build unholy abominations full of TNT. As any Rovio title, there will be free updates to Bad Piggies with more levels and such in the future, which already gives the game even more replayability.

I didn’t have many problems with the title, but one that did occur which really got me was the Mechanic Pig. The Mechanic Pig is the Bad Piggies equivalent to the Angry Birds’ Mighty Eagle. The Mechanic automatically builds the vehicle for you, which will get you to the end of the level. What bugged me is that the times I did use it, the vehicle failed more than when I made it myself. The Mechanic Pig is a nice touch to the game to help people who are stuck as it’s great to get help sometimes. However, when the in-game help (i.e. the Mechanic Pig) can’t get the job done, it can be a real pain, especially since Rovio has the Mechanics set up as in-app purchases, varying from two to ten dollars. You can get a few for free as well via liking the Facebook page or following the Twitter account. I would like to see the Mechanic Pig worked on in upcoming updates as well as being able to earn them through either beating a certain amount of levels or after getting an in-game achievement, not through paying various price points.

Final Focus

The long awaited spin-off to Angry Birds is a fun and creative experience. Fans of the Angry Birds franchise or players looking for a mobile vehicle building game similar to Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts will find lots of enjoyment out of Bad Piggies. The in-game help isn’t much help when needed, but for 99 cents (if you get it on the iPhone/Touch), Bad Piggies is a must download and deserves your creative attention!

Pick up Bad Piggies on PC, Mac, Google Play or the App Store.