Today’s game is Bubble Birds 2 by XIMAD INC Overall Rating: 4.0/ 5
In Bubble Birds 2, you shoot birds of a feather and make them flock together. When three or more birds of the same color touch each other, they disappear like drops of water on a hot car radiator. I don’t usually play “aim and shoot to match the color and eliminate tiles” games. In the genre, the only one I liked was Zuma, and that had a fast paced, interesting experience. Bubble Birds 2, however, does a number of things right, gaining it a high score.
There are a couple of interesting things about Bubble Birds 2, before we get to the actual gameplay. The first is it’s curious naming… instead of an update to bubble birds by the same developer, it was released as a second game altogether. Other than the obvious reason of promoting itself via the “new” queue in Zune. The gameplay in Bb2 is a bit different from Bb1 (presence of keys you have to hit to clear the level), so I guess the dev wanted people to be able to play Bb1 if they wished to.
The second is the presence of a Xbox:Live game, Bubble Town 2, with nearly identical gameplay. Here’s the kicker, though. Bb2 is superior to Bubble town 2 in every possible way. It has better gameplay, better graphics, and best of all, it’s free!
Thirdly, (okay, I lied, there are three interesting things, not two), the screenshot taking app works just fine with this game. Is this written in Silverlight? So behold: a glorious screenshot taken on the device!
Screenshot of Bubble Birds 2 running on the device. What species are those birds? Can you get them as pets?
What I like about Bubble Birds 2: you don’t have to aim artificially, you touch the destination where you want the bird to go. This makes the game much easier, since you don’t have to estimate the trajectory of the bird like in Bubble Town, you have sufficient confidence. However, some of the more spectacular shots can be had by ricocheting the bird off the edge of the screen. So, it is still challenging when you try the more creative shots.The game is too slow. When you shoot a bird, it sort of.. pushes the bar back upwards by bit. So when you pull off some spectacular combo, you are greeted with an almost empty screen, and there is no way to speed up the descent of the birds.
However, the biggest flaw of the game is not the slowness. Nor was it the missing key in level 9 that had players (including me) stuck on that level for a week, till the developer fixed it with an update. It is the way advertisements are handled. When you click the ad… the game does not pause.
Now I know it is hard to test advertisement code, because you are not allowed to click on your own ads. However, while you are checking out those sweet deals that the ads promise… and doing the dev a favor by providing him with revenue, I might add… it is inexcusable that the dev makes the game running in the background.
Despite that, with quirky music, great graphics, good powerups (including a ‘scumbag’ bird that invariably turns a color that is most disadvantageous to you), bubble birds is a great game. I give it a 4 out of 5.
