Controls: Jerky
Angry Birds has become a casual gaming sensation, and one of the premiere smartphone games. It's the new Bejeweled, the new Tetris, the new Solitaire. There's something inexplicably addictive and entertaining about using a giant slingshot to send birds crashing through pigs' fortifications. Now it's come to Sony's gaming systems as a PlayStation mini, a $3.99 downloadable game you can play on both the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable. But before PS fans get too excited, be aware that Angry Birds for Sony's gaming platforms isn't as smart as the smartphone versions.
On one hand, this port of Angry Birds is faithful to the original game. On the other hand, too little was changed for the game to be very fun on the PS3, and performance issues hinder its playability on the PSP. The game comes with just 63 levels (though there is the potential for more in the future). Considering that smartphone versions cost less and include more than three times as many levels (not even including the Angry Birds Seasons games), it's not nearly as tempting as it could be.
For both PlayStation versions of the game, the controls are very simple, but they're not nearly as satisfying as the touch-screen controls found on smartphone versions. The left analog stick (on the PS3) or analog disc (on the PSP) aims the slingshot, X fires, and the shoulder buttons pan the map back and forth so you can look over the level. You can fire the slingshot by flicking the analog stick/disc for a more tactile sensation, but it's an unreliable way to play the game, and you'll find yourself nudging the controller in just the wrong way at a crucial time, sending your bird hopping uselessly just a few feet instead of flying across the level.
Graphics: It's No Super Meat Boy
Visually, Angry Birds has not changed one whit from its smartphone versions. On both the PS3 and PSP, the game features the same cartoony, simple graphics used before, and the menu layout is identical. Regardless of the platform, the game is standard definition. While it looks fine on the PSP (despite some slight pixilation around straight lines placed on angles, on the PS3 it looks blocky and unpleasant, like a smartphone screen blown up to HDTV size. The menus, the sprites, the animations, they're all jarringly full of pixels. While pixilated sprites might be acceptable in retro-themed games, in these days of high-res, hand-drawn sprites in games like Castle Crashers and Super Meat Boy, Angry Birds just looks dated.
On the smaller screen of the PSP, Angry Birds looks much nicer. Unfortunately, the lower processing power leads to some other flaws in the game. You can expect to see significant choppiness and stuttering of the picture during particularly spectacular launches as the handheld's CPU works to keep up. A perfect, pig-crushing throw feels much less satisfying when you watch it jerk along at a few frames per second, hiccupping as the wood, stone, and glass walls shatter and fall.
At Least it's Ch eap
Between its lackluster presentation on the PS3 and jerky game play on the PSP, the PlayStation Mini version of Angry Birds isn't the best version of the game for either platform. However, at $3.99 and packed with dozens of levels, it's a cheap way to sate your bird-flinging thirst if you don't have an Android, iPhone, or iPad. If you have any of the aforementioned mobile devices, use them. Lower prices, more levels, and a much more satisfying touch-screen control system make this one of the few cases where iPhones and Android phones can handle a game far better than either of Sony's systems.
Source:PcMag
Via:PcMag
