With games like Angry Birds and Flappy Bird having such large followings it appears that gamers are obsessed with birds. Now Ninemiles Studios and Milestone Interactive are trying their luck with Aero Birdies – a new iOS game featuring more of our feathered friends.
Aero Birdies is a free-to-play game that also features optional in-app purchases. The game stars four birds – Ziggy, Slim-Jim, Dooby and Le-Nerd. One day while chilling out in their nests high above the ground a mysterious shredding machine appears. Flying away would be too easy so the birds must make their way higher up the trees.
The game plays like a cross between Doodle Jump and Angry Birds. Instead of constantly bouncing up the screen it’s up to you to catapult your bird higher using string platforms. This involves dragging your platform down and moving left and right to aim. Aero Birdies provided two different control methods – touch or tilt. The tilt method works well but can get a bit tiring. We much preferred the touch method where you tap the left and right sides of the screen to move your bird.
You need to ensure that your bird lands onto a new platform each time. If you get your timing or aiming wrong then your bird will glide back down the screen towards the shredder. Touching the shredder is instant death which ends your attempt unless you have golden eggs to spend to resume your game. This is also the same if you touch any of the enemies that are scattered around the platforms.
As you climb higher you also encounter various helpful items such as worms, golden eggs and powerups. Worms are used as currency in the game and can be used to unlock and upgrade items from the in-game store. They can also be used to unlock the different birds but these require between 25,000 and 125,000 worms each.
In a typical game you might only collect a couple of hundred worms so unlocking and upgrading all the items and birds will take a while. For the impatient player the game allows you to spend real cash on boxes of worms and crates of golden eggs. These range from an affordable $1.99 to an insane $99.99 and while they do get you plenty of worms and eggs we doubt many players will bother.
To keep things a bit interesting the higher you climb the more the difficulty ramps up and the more variety you encounter. This includes more enemies, platforms that break and falling branches. The different birds also behave differently requiring you to think a little more. You are also presented with different missions to complete as you play which helps the replayability of the game.
The game is fun for a while but sadly it quickly becomes a bit boring. The biggest problem we found is that it is rather slow paced and takes a while to get going. Staying ahead of the shredder is too easy which gives you plenty of time to plan your moves. More pressure might have given it more of an addictive quality.
Aero Birdies will definitely be enjoyed most by younger players. Older players probably won’t find enough here to keep their attention. Still it’s worth a look to make up your own mind if you think it’s your kind of game.
