On one hand, I admire Rovio, I really do. They took a simple mobile game, Angry Birds, (which may or may not be a rip off of another title with some cosmetic tweaks, I won't say until I have a better lawyer) and turned it into an empire, tie-ins with movies like "Star Wars" and bands like "Green Day," merchandise, soda, a snack line, its own show, movie, potential theme park, and God only knows how many pieces of colored plastic.
Now, on the other hand, and in light of recent news, the developer confuses me as well. Rovio recently announced their intention to turn its award winning franchise into a kart racer of all things. Because like I'm sure we all do, when I think birds, I think of driving.
Angry Birds Go is being produced in partnership with Red Bull, which is fitting, as the titular birds fly about as well as most of the crafts in Red Bull's Flugtag competition (don't give me that look, you've seen the commercials). At this point, Rovio doesn't need Red Bull bank to make this game.
MarioKart is no doubt the grand daddy of the kart genre, and it's been successful enough as a series that about every other franchise under the sun has tried to emulate it. Think back for a moment, just about every major franchise of today and yesteryear has had a kart racer game: Star Wars, Kirby, Crash Bandicoot, Final Fantasy, and more. Even LittleBigPlanet is guilty.
It's almost like a prerequisite for successful games at this point, as if the publisher execs are going down an itemized checklist. "What's next Johnson?" "Well, according to the list sir, we should develop a kart racer." "OK, get a memo to Lars to have the team get on it."
Where's the originality Rovio? I know the team is capable of it. The pull of gravity in Angry Birds Space? Brilliant. Adding portals to the game? Excellent. But this...
Granted, not a lot of information about the game is out there just yet, but it seems as if the only thing separating Rovio's future racer from others is that it'll be on Facebook, no doubt all set to sieze upon the "free-to-play/pay-to-win" model.
In fairness, I should just hold the attitude at bay until the game sees the light of day. In the end, maybe Rovio will surprise yours truly by bringing something new to the genre, but that remains to be seen. For the time being, all we have to go on is a recently released trailer, seen below. Check it out, and we'll keep you posted once Rovio makes more news available.
