When developer Rovio first announced a partnership with 20th Century Fox to put out a special edition of Angry Birds to tie-in with the upcoming film Rio, we were a little curious about what that might mean. Would it be Angry Birds gameplay with Rio characters? Would the two worlds come together somehow? And what of the pigs? Now that Angry Birds Rio has finally arrived, our questions have been answered. The third instalment in the Angry Birds franchise (if you don’t count the series endless supply of free updates), Angry Birds Rio inserts the characters from Angry Birds into the plot of Rio, a film about two blue macaws who are birdnapped and need to make an escape. The gameplay remains largely the same, with players putting some familiar feathered friends into a slingshot and aiming them at structures in order to kill pigs and complete the level. The only real difference is that instead of pigs you’ll be freeing caged birds and taking out monkeys. Well, maybe that’s not the only difference... For the most part, Angry Birds Rio is completely in keeping with the Angry Birds releases of the past. Still – unlike Angry Birds Seasons, Rio is starting to make changes that go beyond the cosmetic. They’re baby steps to be sure, but they haven’t gone unnoticed. As popular as the series it, some evolution needs to happen if it wants to have the long term staying power of a Mario or a Pac-Man. In Rio, we’re starting to see the first glimmer of that evolution.
