Rovio today released Angry Birds Go! for both iOS and Android platforms. It's absolutely free, so stop reading this and get to downloading it on your phone.
While spinoff Bad Piggies focused on the villains of the Angry Birds series and allowed you to construct vehicles, Angry Birds Go! models itself after Mario Kart. This is the franchise's first foray into a kart-racing game, featuring all the familiar birds, pigs, and three stars for each level that you'd expect. It's also the first time the Angry Birds have ever been rendered in 3D. It looks great too, a really colorful caroon world that wouldn't look out of place in a "Looney Tunes" game.
As you play you will find new characters, karts and upgrades to purchase. You could just unlock everything through playing the game but this is a free-to-play game and you can purchase whatever you want via microtransactions. As in most free-to-play games they don't want you playing too much for free, so each character can only compete in a certain number of races before they because exhausted and have to rest. It's the usual timer nonsense that permeates all of these games but you can't complain too much for a free game, I suppose.
The game also supports those nifty little Angry Birds Pods, the little toys you buy in stores and can place on your phone or tablet in order to zap that character into the game.
There are many different modes of play, from straight races and time trials to obstacle courses and races where you have to smash fruit. (I'm not sure why mobile games hate fruit so much, but they do.) Boss fights can give you new racers to play with and in every race you can see how you stack up against your friends on Game Center or Facebook. It's a fun little game in the limited amount of time I spent with it, but what else would you expect from Rovio at this point?
You can download Angry Birds Go! on either the App Store or via Google Play. (Windows Phone and Blackberry versions are available, too.)
