Remember how in Angry Birds that the Pigs always get the short end of the stick, well, PAN Vision AB’s latest game for the iPhone, Pigs In Trees turns the tables on those pesky birds, with the Pigs showing just what happens when those feathered menaces start messing with them.


The game is a top-down shmup with an unusual control scheme. A bunch of pigs staying up in a tree are threatened by pesky woodpeckers and it’s up to the player to guide the plane-flying pigs to shoot down these woodpeckers. How did the pigs get up onto a tree in the first place is lost on me, but this is a pretty humorous premise, don’t you think?

Players just need a trace a line from the flying pig to wherever on screen in order for it to fly to that particular spot. Locking on one of the birds will cause the Pig to open fire and it’s possible to come up with combos (basically how many birds you killed in a single salvo). And having played through the game, and having watched my pro-casual gamer of a fiance play it, Pigs in Trees definitely throws up a challenge at gamers.

These are not run-of-the-mill woodpeckers that we are talking about. Some of these guys are screamers, some drop bombs as they fly, some even emit toxic trails. All these will cause damage to your little piggie-in-a-plane and I must say the best part of the game involves taking up some interesting
strategies with my inteprid flying pigs to take out these airborne threats.

Fortunately for players, there are random power-ups that can picked up. Instant-repair power-ups rank up there on the usefulness meter along with the temporary firepower boost power-up. There’s also the floating mines (more like balloons) power-up but that’s more miss than hit IMHO.


Regardless, Pigs In Trees turned out to be an spectacular, if not unorthodox shmup featuring piggish aerial dog-fighting and brings one home for the Pigs. The game is spread out across 45 levels, bringing in a lot of value for money for a USD 0.99 game, and to top it off, there’s Game Center achivements and leaderboards. Nine Over Ten 9/10 rates the game at a deserving 4.5 out of 5.

Check it out over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pigs-in-trees/id439855566?mt=8. A review code was provided to Nine Over Ten 9/10 for the purpose of this review.