‘Angry Birds Space’ Arrives in a Month

Apparently a year is too long to go without a new version of the game arriving, so Rovio’s put up a teaser page letting us know about the coming launch of Angry Birds Space, briefly mentioned in the latest Top 10 Tech This Week.
It’s been a while now since we’ve seen a full-on new edition of Angry Birds. Sure, Rovio regularly release new episodes for its Angry Birds games, full of new levels and the occasional new bird, but ignoring the Symbian-only Angry Birds Magic with its NFC tricks, the last we got was the promotional movie tie-in of Angry Birds Rio last March.
Details on the game are sparse, but Rovio has disclosed that it will be arriving on March 22. For some reason, the company’s recruited NASA and National Geographic as partners in the app’s launch, but it’s unclear how they could fit in besides just providing background imagery for the game.
How will Space differ from existing Angry Birds titles? The obvious change would be letting level designers mess around with the strength of gravity. There will also supposedly be a “lightspeed destruction” mode, though it’s unclear just what that will entail. Rovio will likely have more details to share, as well as some in-game footage, as we approach the launch date.

Angry Birds on Facebook Launching Your Way on Valentines Day

What could be more romantic than playing Angry Birds on Facebook with your sweetheart or with a social network of relative strangers? The highly anticipated Facebook version of Angry Birds will officially be landing in a browser near you on Feb. 14, Valentines Day.
Rovio, the studio behind the game, has put out a trailer (above) and dropped lots of little hints that the Angry Birds on Facebook won’t be exactly like its mobile counterparts. Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said the game will have completely new aspects and a more collaborative feel. It’ll also focus more heavily on the hapless pigs.
From the trailer above it looks like the same gameplay that made Angry Birds a viral (and financial) sensation are still the focus: Flinging birds across a screen to knock out pigs and build high scores. This being Facebook, expect social posts and friend challenges to play a role, though Rovio so far has stayed mum on what those “collaborative” features will be.
It may seem like a bad idea to launch a game on Valentine’s Day, but given Angry Birds‘ success, Rovio can pretty much do what it wants. The game — and its spin-offs — have been downloaded more than 500 million times, prompting Rovio CMO Peter Vesterbacka to say the company was worth more than $1.2 billion.
Angry Birds games have been developed for nearly every major mobile platform or device but this is the first time the game will be coming to a browser on the social network. It’s a move designed to get the game into more hands and more news feeds, but at some point will we just be Angry Bird-ed out?