I remember driving across a crow pen in my hometown a couple of years back, it, and several other pens around town were the solution created by the local municipal council to control the population of what was generally considered a pest. I suppose a stationary wire-mesh pen would make for very boring video game material, but Chucky Apps’ latest iOS title City Birds is a game based around a similar premise, “rescuing” birds from the dangers of flying around a very busy city.
The word “rescue” is in double quotes because in City Birds, you drag them while they are flying in mid-air and chuck them into their respective colour-coordinate cages. Hmm…. I wonder if PETA would go up in arms over the treatment of these virtual birds playing hard to get. The game quickly becomes twitch-based as different birds fly at different speeds (some even come with jetpacks..go figure) and you are not supposed to let anyone of them escape. You’ll also need to beware of the obstacles being thrown at you such as bombs and eggs.
Playing this endless-runner style game nets you coins, which is used to unlock even more bird types. Some of these birds can net you double or triple the amount of coins every time you capture one of them, and for those of you who are chasing the top spot on the Game Center leaderboards, this is incentive enough to go ahead and unlock them.
The thing that always struck me as odd would be why would anyone charge for a game that comes with in-app purchasing that mimics a freemium title in which purchasing stuff that WILL give you a leg up. In the case of City Birds, that would be purchasing additional coins.
The other issue about City Birds is that while the 2D graphics are OK and the game mechanics are decent, being OK and decent doesn’t really cut it in this neck of the woods, basically it’s the new mediocre. This is the iOS App Store we are talking about with plenty of crazy cool stuff out there for FREE. I rate City Birds at a 3.5 out of 5. The game is available for 99 cents on the App Store, and you can check it out for yourself over here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/city-birds/id641733603?mt=8.
A review code was provided to Nineoverten.com for the purpose of this review.
