Greedy Pigs FULL

Summary

Greedy Pigs—Angry Birds... Do I detect some sort of theme here? A lot of farm animals have been jumping on the Angry Birds bandwagon lately, especially judging by the graphic design. The same is true for Greedy Pigs FULL which looks a lot like that bird game from Finland which you may have heard of.

However, as soon as you start a round of Greedy Pigs you will realize that it has nothing to do with evil birds. Instead, the protagonists are animals of the forest: bears, hedgehogs and pigs… And what do they all have in common? A sweet tooth. All these greedy little things can think about is getting as much honey into their bellies as they can. The problem is that the honey belongs to the dwarves…

Greedy Pigs FULL is a Tower Defense Game with a twist. You haven’t seen anything quite like this from the Tower Defense gang!

Everything you need to know about this game can be read about in today’s review!
 

I have to admit that this game made me think of lots of funny animal jokes so let me set the tone by sharing some of my favourites with you:

The mouse was taking her offspring out in search of food when they were confronted by a cat. Immediately, the mouse began barking like a dog. Frightened, the cat ran away.
Turning back to her children, the mouse mother announced, “That shows you the importance of learning a second language!”

And:

A pig and a chicken were walking by a church where a charity event was taking place. Getting caught up in the atmosphere, the pig suggested to the chicken that they each make an offering.
"Great idea!" the chicken replied. "Let's offer them ham and eggs!"
"Not so fast," said the pig. "For you, that's an offering. For me, it's a sacrifice."

Whew, okay, now that’s done we can get on with the actual review.

Greedy Pigs: behind the scenes
There’s a story to Greedy Pigs FULL: hunters, wizards and dwarves get sloshed together. The forest animals wait until the others are drunk enough and then make a bee-line for the honey pots. The dwarves may be wasted, but they have sworn to protect the golden booze and are determined to do so, despite their drunken stupor. Tipsy though they are they defend the honey with bullets, rocks and even magic.

A very special Tower Defense Game
Let’s get one thing straight: Greedy Pigs has nothing to do with Angry Birds. What it is is a Tower Defense Game with a twist. If you are familiar with Tower Defense Games you will know that the gameplay usually involves towers that are firmly rooted to the ground and can’t be moved. In the case of Greedy Pigs the towers are actually dwarves (warrior, hunter and magician) and unlike the towers they can be moved around, though there are a few small obstacles that prevent total freedom of movement. This means strategic players can be moved every time a defense front needs fortifying.

This means there that lots of strategic moves are possible. Two examples:

• Quantity: build as many fighting towers as possible until you reach the limit in order to ward off as many opponents as you can.
• Quality: save your dosh and wait for opportune moments to boost up your fighting power. This means your opponents will have a lot to contend with, and kind of out of the blue. This strategy entails a lot of micro managing because you have to make sure your defense is really good at all times. It’s a blast, though!

The Greedy Pigs protagonists: what a strange bunch of cats
Make what you will out of the back story—one thing is for sure and that’s that the character and their abilities compliment the storyline. Truth be told, I don’t quite know whose side I’d rather be on. The dwarves and their posse throw rocks at their opponents. They even shoot at them. And the animals, well, all they really want to do is eat a bit of honey. Can you blame them? Anyway, there’s no point musing about who you’d rather be as you really don’t have any say in the matter, dwarf boy!

‘The bad guys’

• Pig: a robust animal; it takes one or to dwarves to bring this big guy down, hunters don’t stand a chance.
• Helmet pig: an even stronger fellow; you have to knock his helmet off his head before you can vanquish him.
• Shy hedge hog: this poor little thing hides whenever dwarves are near, but hunters can’t be fooled by his demure tricks.
• Wild boar: watch out for these dudes! They’re strong as an ox.
• Bear: he loves honey and is not an easy target so line up your dwarves!
• Ostrich: The Speedy Gonzalez of the bird kingdom. Wizards are a good match for him.

'The good guys'

• Dwarves: these guys are a good all-rounder weapon against the pesky, peckish forest gang. They will throw big rocks at animals. The more evolved a dwarf becomes the better his aim will be. Later on he can then graduate to using bombs.
• Hunters: a window pops up to inform you that the hunter is still pretty drunk, but he just about manages to shoot straight ahead. Positioning him on bridges is your best bet.
• Magician: not only can he perform magic, he can also make the animals drunk, which slows them down considerably. Advanced wizards have a much bigger radius in which their spells work, and the intensity of their spells is greater, too.

Bottom line:
This is a really fun game, even though I can’t help but feel sorry for the animals. Still, the fun factor overrules whatever moral fibers I have left. We love that the towers can be moved around and would have awarded the game five stars if only the offense and defense was a bit more diversified…

As mentioned previously, the Greedy Pigs FULL intro graphics are reminiscent of Angry Birds, although the game itself has a look that’s entirely its own. Nicely done graphics, much nicer than in many other Tower Defense Games.

Greedy Pigs FULL’s overall performance in this category is very good. We didn’t experience any major problems during our test run, but there was a slight hiccup involving a kind of infinity loop at the end of the last level’s final segment; it made the processor really hot. Aside from this everything ran smoothly.

Greedy Pigs FULL can be purchased for EUR1,18 from the Android Market and the AndroidPIT App Center; a fair price for a great game!