This week we take a look at the holiday appropriate MUST.EAT.BIRDS released earlier this week by by Mediatonic. The aim of the game is to prevent the birds from spoiling your picnic by bouncing Nomster around the screen using a catapult through eighteen missions and four challenges. Some birds take multiple hits before they are defeated and each time a bird is eaten a combo multiplier increases until you miss, then the multiplier is reset to 0 (zero).
Those are the basics, but you can also shoot with less power or bounce off a wall and then fire again, eating your last Nomster and creating a larger one that not only covers more of the screen but can also defeat some of the tougher birds in a single hit. As you achieve combos a cake begins to build in the background, once the cake fills the screen you achieve “MAXIMUM BAKE!”, at which time Nomster can also bounce off the top of the screen, allowing for much larger combos and a lot more points
Different missions require you to either achieve a certain score or defeat an amount of birds, sometimes with a limited amount of shots. As some levels require you to score upwards of 100,000 points and each bird only earns you a single point, getting a large combo without missing becomes increasingly important whether you have a limited amount of shots or not. Missions also have different backgrounds and will send different types of birds at you, although there are only four types.
There’s not much to the game, but trying to get through the later levels can be a challenge even without going for an A rank. The speed and frantic gameplay is one of MUST.EAT.BIRDS’ biggest features, however it also seems to have some performance issues. Even with a freshly rebooted EVO with a stock ROM and background data disabled I noticed temporary freezes several times which really upsets the flow of the gameplay. Also the soundtrack ceased on more than one occasion after completing a level, making future levels play without sound until I exited the game. With any luck these bugs will be ironed out later but it does seem that the game could have benefited from another week or two in development before being released.
Despite the performance issues and the bugs MUST.EAT.BIRDS is a fun and frantic game to play, its attempt at a Japanese style gives the game a lot of character and is well worth its price of under a dollar.
When you’re ready, head over to the Android Market and download this game by clicking or scanning the QR Code below.
Summary and Downloads:
Game: Must.Eat.Birds
Developer: Mediatonic
Cost: Â $.93
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