Ever wanted to know how it feels like to be a real majestic bird, soaring through the skies at high speeds? Nothing to worry about except getting food into your belly and staying away from dangerous hawks that might swoop down and eat your precious little butt? How amazing it would be to just, spread your wings and fly away into the sunset, right? Well, Bryan thought so as well. Except, you are by far the worlds tiniest bird. That, or you are flying through a post-apocalyptic wasteland where bugs and the local vegetation have mutated into enormous counterparts of their tiny brethren. In bird game + you get the opportunity to guide your tiny bird through a couple of levels which are littered with dangers and a few secrets sprinkled around. So lets spread our own imaginary wings and fly off into our doom, as we flutter through, Bird Game +!
- Audio: I got to give credit where credit’s due. The music used in Bird Game + really suits the style of the game, well, the calmer parts. It’s gentle melodies carry you across the levels like it was a fluffy cloud, taking you away into the sweetest of dreams. Not only does it give you a relaxing vibe, but the boss battles also have some good tracks as well. This is a real saving grace for the game, as otherwise, I wouldn’t have given it a high score as it has right now.
- Visuals: Although the visual style is quite unique with its hand-drawn look and scribbles appeal, it doesn’t really feel nice to look at for a certain period of time. I tried both options that the game offers you. A light and a dark mode. The light mode gave me a feeling like everything was just a bit too bright for my taste. And the dark mode rather gave me the idea that the animations looked a bit slow. Neither of these options gave me the assumption that is was optimized for the said light/dark mode.
- Length: If you were hoping for a lengthy game, you might want to skip this one. Because is barely any content. Sure there’s an endless mode, but why would you even play one? The only reason I booted that one up, was because of 4 achievements that were tucked away in it. After I got them, I crashed my bird and quit. It’s just you flying throughout the level, and that’s it.
- Camera: Oh my god, this camera! Not only does it always feel like its off-center, but it also doesn’t know what to do with itself. One moment you could be thinking, oh that thing that’s coming at me is at that height, so I’ll just fly lower… Oh, what? It was actually lower? And crash into it, losing health along the way. But it also doesn’t really represent the level boundaries at all. One moment you can’t go further to the left or to the right. Making you think that there’s an invisible wall. And the other moment you can go further than the boundaries. There’s no indication at all. Worst of all, it doesn’t follow you all the time, so you’re often guessing if you’re flying correctly or not.
- Glitchy: One of my other major gripes were the glitches. One moment I actually had to put the controller down because it was getting me all riled up. There’s this part in one of the boss battles where you got to get rid of some following bugs by having them crash into the boss. So, I do it as usual, and then all of a sudden, I get stuck in one of the bugs. Causing me to get collision damage over and over, eventually killing me and having to redo the entire part again. Other times the speed up rings wouldn’t speed me up. They’d disappear but nothing happened, resulting in death more often than not, and thus sending me back to the previous checkpoint.
★ Score: 42%
Bird Game + feels like it was supposed to be a more polished and expansive game. And in my honest opinion, it probably could have been. But what we get here, even at its low price point, just isn’t really worth it. Sure the audio really is wonderfully done and I hope that the next project will have the same amount of love put into its tracks. The rest just felt lackluster and just not fun at all to play. Of course, you have that easy 1000G to consider. But is it really worth your sanity though?
Developer: Bryan Tabor Publisher: Ratalaika Games
Played on: Xbox One X Also available on: PS4 – Switch and PC
Alexis spent around 1 hour trying to fly with his sanity still intact.
Achievement difficulty for 1000 Gamerscore: 45 minutes if you are an ace pilot. Less if you are a wizard. Around an hour or so for the regular people.
Perfect for: Game score hunters.
Xbox Game Store link: Click here