Angry Birds – A Guide to 3 Stars
4 min readAngry Birds, the most popular game on the planet right now. Maybe not, but darn close. If you have an iPhone or an Android phone or know someone who has one or the other, you probably have heard of Angry Birds. The most addictive game I have ever played.
The concept is simple. Slingshot a bird into a structure and either hit or cause enough damage to the pigs to score. Get all the pigs on the level with the number of birds you have, you beat the level. How well you did, judged by how many points you score, determines the number of stars awarded. That’s it. The trailer above pretty much shows it.
This game I compare to the very first, mainstream game of this nature. The physics based throw and blow up game that I loved as much as Angry Birds. That game is Scorched Earth.
I can say at this moment, March 24, 2011, I have 3 stars on every level of Angry Birds available today, except for 4 on the new Rio release which I have 2 stars on those. That’s the addictive nature of it, getting 3 stars on every level and maximizing your points. Getting all the pigs or releasing all the birds in Rio is not enough, you need to do it again and again until you get 3 stars. So I decided to put together a guid of how I play the game and how I go about getting three stars.
First and foremost, you need to play Angry Birds with no limits on creativity. There are some levels that requires you to get creative on how you toss those birds. Here some rules that you must follow in order to be successful toward the 3 stars.
- Less Birds Is Better – If you want 3 stars, try your best not to use all the birds. You get 10,000 points for every bird left over. That’s a big key to getting to 3 stars. If you use all birds, you will not get 3 stars. Some levels do require all the birds and you can still get 3 stars, but most do not.
- Straight Lines Don’t Win – Angry Birds is a game of physics. Do not think that a straight line shot toward a pig or knocking something down will do it. Most of the time it won’t.You need to learn how to arc. Death from above. It works.
- Gravity Is Your Friend – Remember, this is a game of physics. Gravity is your best friend when it comes to destruction. When you see a tower, hit it low. When you see a concrete block on the top, find a way to get that falling. On the level you have inclines, use them, things roll. Gravity will do the rest.
- Learn the blocks – There is wood and concrete/rock. Wood breaks easily, rock does not. Learn how each breaks and how they break in the position they are in, straight on or on their side breaks differently.
- Try, Try Again – Keep at it. It can be done.
In Angry Birds there are 5 varieties that you get to use throughout the game.
- Red Bird (small and Large) – The basic bird. Basically a bowling ball. You throw it and hit whatever it hits. Pretty bland. This is the bird you use to knock something loose, come in at a high angle, or do the rare straight shot.
- Yellow Triangle Bird – This bird I like to call the missile. When you fire this brid, mid flight you tap the screen and it fires off at a high rate of speed. This the bird you use as the roomer. The piercing bird. This will blast through wood like butter. The force this bird makes is usually enough to get things moving, tilting and falling. High angles works best to bust downward and get things to collapse within itself.
- White Bird – The bomber. Like the yellow bird, after firing, you tap on the screen to release an egg bomb. Now this is very useful to blow up bases of structures. BUt the secret with this bird is when you drop the egg, the bird flies off in an upward angle. This is a very powerful tricky maneuver. If you send this bird in low, you can drop the egg bomb and use this bird’s fast exit as a second missile into the structures. Quite useful.
- The Bomb – This one needs little explanation. It’s a bomb, similar to the Acme version in the Wild E. Coyote cartoons. You toss it in and it blows up. This one is very heavy, breaks through everything. Strategic placement is everything. BOOM.
- Green Boomerang – My least favorite bird. You toss this at the far end of the board, tap the screen and it boomerangs back hitting the back side of the structure. This one is trick to use, takes a few tries to get it just right. It’s the most frustrating birds to use.
That’s about it. I am not going to give a blow by blow, level by level walkthrough on how to beat each one. I feel that if you use those to get the 3 stars, then why do you play in the first place? What’s the point of even playing when you have to rely on others to tell you how to succeed? I actually hate the fact of the Bing partnership and the Eagle thing if you get ‘stuck’. If you don’t want to play the game to be challenged to actually solve something, then why bother in the first place? Cheat to win? Unable to think out of the box? Whatever.
I play for the challenge, the journey, the frustration and the satisfaction that every star I have one the iPhone and iPad is EARNED.
End of LIne.
@binaryblogger
Binary Blogger has spent 20 years in the Information Security space currently providing security solutions and evangelism to clients. From early web application programming, system administration, senior management to enterprise consulting I provide practical security analysis and solutions to help companies and individuals figure out HOW to be secure every day.
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