Angry Birds 2

Gameplay

Just as in the original Angry Birds, players use a slingshot to launch birds at nearby structures; a key difference in Angry Birds 2 is the ability to select birds of desired choice from a deck. This can give the player more freedom by allowing the creation of their own unique strategies. The main enemies of the game are green-colored pigs of varying sizes and abilities to defense, who can be defeated by hitting them with birds or objects.

Individual birds and spells are represented on cards. Tapping on a card will select it, placing its contents on the slingshot for launching. Players increase their score by destroying objects and pigs and leveled up birds multiply the score. Birds can be leveled up by gaining feathers of the respective birds. The "Destruct-o-meter" fills up during play and if it gets full, a random card will be given to the player. Only three cards can be displayed at a time; the rest appear in the deck. The player loses a life if all cards have been used and at least one pig remains undefeated without the use of gems to continue the level; once five lives have been lost, the player must use gems, watch an advertisement or wait (30 minutes for each of the 5 lives) until the lives are refilled.

Levels include multiple waves of pigs, which progress through separate structures. Bosses will appear on some levels, and require the complete depletion of the boss's health bar in order to defeat it. Spells are disabled for boss levels.

Gifts are randomly located in the levels. Hitting blue gifts allows the player to send a gift to a friend through Facebook. Hitting red gifts will reward the player gems or bird feathers. Occasionally, Golden Pigs may appear in some levels, which fills the "Destruct-o-meter" when they are popped. They are not required to go to the next stage though, but are helpful to get one extra card irrespective of destruction caused. The game may be connected to Facebook to backup scores and play in the arena. Gems, lives and avatars can be earned from in-app purchases while only gems can be collected by completing daily quests.

The Arena is unlocked after reaching level 5. The concept of the Arena is similar to Angry Birds Friends. The players in the world were randomly divided in a batch of 15 and feathers were awarded to a particular bird according to the high score of each player in endless level of same arena event which changed every day. After the Mount Evernest update, with same division of players, the arena became a six-day-long tournament where the rewards were gems instead of feathers. The endless levels of arena event are now randomly given and not fixed for a particular day and multiple events can be played in a day. Instead of player playing alone for a high score, now the player competes with a randomly chosen opponent and one with better score is awarded stars according to the margin of victory. Stars decide ranks of the players. The top three move up a league and bottom three go down one league. Players also get medals if they finish in top three in Arena.

Promotions

Rovio uses new spells for promotional use which are similar to the 'Golden Duck' spell. These spells can be used until completion of only one level and no other spell can be used in that particular level. These spells are available for a limited time and change with ongoing events.

The ongoing festivities are also promoted by specially designed levels which gives a premium treasure box in return if the players wins it. Only one attempt is given for this level. This started on February 14, 2016 which promoted Valentine's Day through a specially designed level. These levels were only available for a limited time.

The Gravity Grove update promoted The Angry Birds Movie by using the character appearances from the movie in the levels.

Reception

The game has received mixed reviews. Pocket Gamer gave the game a 7/10, feeling that the gameplay was a step forward in puzzle design and the graphics were gorgeous; however, it did not like the energy system that, after failing to complete a few levels, either makes the player stop playing or use gems to continue playing; overall the website thought the game was Rovio at its best. IGN awarded it a score of 6.7 out of 10, saying "Ever-shifting levels and limited lives take a lot of the fun out of smashing pigs with birds in Angry Birds 2."

Three days after its release, Angry Birds 2 was downloaded over 10 million times; it is a free game on all platforms. One week after its release, Angry Birds 2 was downloaded over 20 million times. On August 6, 2015, the game was the number one downloaded iOS game in 100 countries and the most downloaded game on Android.