Angry Birds Makes me Angry.

The game itself I don't have a problem with. Except for the part when a brick falls on a pig and the pig doesn't die. Or how the constructs have a tendency to fall the opposite way that you would expect.

My beef is with Rovio. I don't think they did a good enough job handling the game. How can I say that even though it has consistently placed in the top ten of downloaded apps? Because I didn't know it was available for Windows until Justin mentioned it off-hand. Then it took me another hour to get it on my computer.

I had always known that it was available on IPhone, IPod, IPad, Android, and even heard Bob and Tom playing it on their Macs. Also Leo Laporte and Kim Komando talking all about how this game is all over the the same platforms. Not a word about Windows. I thought it's great the Mac finally gets a quality game, but I ain't buying an IPhone just to play this game.

(Big secret: I don't have an IPod. Why spend a couple hundred dollars on a music player when a $40 one does just as well?)

Late last year I needed a graphic reference and of course Googled Angry Birds. Took me right o the Angry Birds page at Rovio. I just wanted that big picture in the center. But I did do a bit of looking around but didn't see much that indicated to me what it was available on. I'm familiar with the App Store and such. I didn't bother with much else. Why trouble myself, Everybody says it only on mobile devices.

Then reading Super Justin's review he mention it was on Windows. I immediately Googled Angry Birds on Windows and at the time came up empty. Going to Rovio's site still had me guessing. Except for Palm for some strange reason, they never mention the specific OSes that Angry Birds is available for. I'm not asking for every damn Android phone on the market, just say Mac, IPhone, Android, and Windows. Click here to check compatibility. Adobe makes it pretty obvious. Microsoft can do it. Look at their shelf. DUH! Office is for Windows, but HEY! There's a Mac Version sitting there too!

With a bunch of random clicking around I figure out that the Windows version is in the Intel AppUp Store. You can't just download the game.NOOOOOOoooooo! You have to install the AppUp App as well. Then you can buy the game.

Now it's time to get stupid. I like to keep things slim and trim on my computer. I can't have a bunch of crap running hogging up resources. Intel AppUp turns on when you start up your computer. I go into MSCONFIG and turn it off. Angry Birds won't play. Next you can't make a backup copy. I tried. I copied the Rovio folder to another fully updated computer and it failed to play. Even installing Intel AppUp failed to get it to work. So you have to re-download it again.

Harddrives fail, motherboards overheat, and yes, Leo's cosmic rays do screw up Windows.

I understand totally. If you make this game playable by itself, people will pirate it to no end. It happened to Rosenkreuzstilette. But hell, Adobe is still making tons off of Flash. People pirate it, and some do buy it.

My problem is what if Intel AppUp loses your information? When I installed Win 7, I then installed Bejeweled 2 that I had downloaded from Pop Cap. They lost my information so I couldn't activate it. Had to go buy another copy. On CD. There's no option to get a hard copy of Angry Birds from Rovio.

For five dollars, it's worth the effort. Rovio is smart about this: check back once in a while, there's new levels.


I do have this feeling of Deja Vu, but this time I can't figure it out. I think I've played a similar game before, but the closest I can come is the "Cat"-Apult sequence from Blazing Dragons.