Angry Birds Space developer Rovio just made a bold claim about its latest bird-tossing time-killer: 10 million downloads in three days. The company announced the figure on its Twitter feed this morning.
Tablet, smartphone and computer versions arrived in tandem last Thursday, moving the game’s pig-pummeling action off-world and into deep space, where players have to grapple with the impact of different gravity sources on birds’ slingshot trajectories. Like prior installments, Rovio offers a freebie level-limited version or the whole thing for $0.99. It’s available for the iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac and Windows, with a Windows Phone version in the offing.
Angry Birds Rio, the company’s last-in-franchise, took over a week to hit 10 million downloads. Note that neither figure delineates between full and paid versions — that’s just the total haul, so it’s impossible to say what we’re talking about revenue-wise.
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Reviews have so far been well above average, with some like Game Informer giving the game high marks:
Angry Birds Space could have easily been a slightly modified version of the game we already know and love. As long as the structures holding the pigs were new and the art was different, Rovio would have still sold plenty. Instead, the developer released a game that feels like a true sequel to the physics-based title that has helped define modern mobile gaming.
The Guardian agrees, writing that while the series “rubs a lot of people up the wrong way” and “some really do see Rovio as a bunch of hacks…”
…there is real craft on show in Angry Birds Space. The merchandise and spin-offs may be ubiquitous, but the gameplay still feels fresh, with enough new elements to reawaken the addiction for players of the previous versions … beneath all the Angry Birds As Phenomenon noise lurks a genuinely excellent game, whose success has been built on quality, not just hype.
And Touch Arcade absolutely loves the game, calling it “the Super Mario Brothers of mobile devices” and recommending that “everyone should give it a try.”
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