Today's Review: Angry Birds: Knock On Wood

I think it's fair to say I didn't take this picture. Sorry internet, but it's so much easier to take photos from Google than to make my own. Anyways, this is another awesome Christmas present I got. It's the board game equivalent of Angry Birds!

You're basically supplied with three squishy bird toys, four plastic pigs, a series of wooden beams and a catapult. There are some cards in there too, each with a certain points amount and a diagram showing you how to lay out the beams and pigs, and which birds you're allowed to use in a certain sequence. The player has to choose cards based on how many points they feel like winning, 100 points being the easiest to knock down, 300 being the hardest.

If you manage to knock every pig to the ground with your allotted birds, you get the points. If even one remains, you get nothing. So it's worth getting used to the aiming and trajectory skills needed to make your shots count. The first player to get to 1000 points wins the game. It doesn't sound like a large winning amount, but knocking down these constructs is harder than it looks.

Knock On Wood is a pretty damn awesome way to bring Angry Birds off the screen (think of the children!) and into a multiplayer family friendly game. My only gripe is that it feels a little unpolished, especially with the doling out of points. Perhaps there could be a staggered system rather than an all or nothing scenario, but the whole thing seems a bit unplanned and rushed. There are even golden egg and star trophies that are included in some of the building cards, but the only thing they seem to be there for is to look pretty. They're not even mentioned in the instructions, which lends to that slightly unfinished feel. Still, it's pretty cool to launch your own little rubber birdies at those smarmy pigs. If only they had sound effects too...

My rating: 4/5