Game - Bird Mania 3D
Developer/Publisher - Teyon/Teyon
Version - eShop
Time Spent Playing - 2 hours
Price - $1.99
Obtained - Review Copy courtesy of Teyon

Story

The story - which is told through static screens and is viewable from the main menu - is about a bird named Mojo who's overslept and was left behind as all the other birds flew south for winter. Now, Mojo has to fly like crazy to catch up to his fellow birds. Yeah, that's it. The story is simple and forgettable, but that doesn't matter because the gameplay is the star.

Gameplay and Controls

The gameplay is simple, deceptively so. See, Bird Mania 3D is a score attack game. So your goal varies depending on what you want to do. The main goal of the game is to rack up a high score. In order to this, you can concentrate on how many stars you can collect, or how many balloons you can pop, or how far you can travel and more. There are a variety of ways in which you can rack up the points, it's all a matter of what your strategy is.

Mojo will move forward automatically and it's up to you to control his flight path as you control his ascent, descent and turbo boost. Along the way you must avoid trees, although you can fly past their trunks without dying. You must also either avoid enemy birds and wasps or kill them by using your turbo boost to fly into them. You can rack up hi score multipliers by defeating enemy birds, popping balloons and collecting a consecutive amount of stars. One hit will kill you, so be careful. The game also throws a day and night cycle as well as weather at you. The night cycle seems to slow down as to give you a break, but it doesn't last for long. When you die, a game over screen appears, displaying your score and stats as well as the best score and stats achieved thus far. Kept on record are how many stars you collected, balloons you popped, enemies you hit, hi score multipliers you racked up and the distance you traveled in miles. In all there 50 hi-scores recorded at any one time.

There are a variety of control options, but the one I found to be best, was the stylus. You control the boost with either L or R. You can also use the d-pad, circle pad and the face buttons to control Mojo. Rest assured, there is a control scheme for everyone out there.

Visuals and Sound

The visuals are simple and clean. Everything is a presented in a 2D cartoon style and works great. Mojo's design is cool, he's wearing flying goggles and a scarf that flutters behind him in the wind. The trees tend to blend into the background at first, making it easier to crash into them, but I got used to them after just a few deaths. The day and night cycle looks good. The weather isn't as impressive but it gets the job done. When you get hit - trust me, you will - Mojo's eyes close in a squint and he comes crashing down at an angle. The sound effects and music are minimal but work together and never become too repetitive. There is only one song in the game (some Celtic music perhaps), but it never gets boring. You'll like the simplistic, cartoony visuals and the music is sure to entertain you.

Concluding Overall Impressions

Bird Mania 3D is a fast paced, addictive, and fun pick up and play game worth every penny of that $2!

Final Score: 5 out of 5