Daily iPhone App: Pigs in Trees

If you're anything like me, you probably overlooked Pigs in Trees when it came out a little while ago, thinking it was more of an Angry Birds knockoff than anything else. And you'd be forgiven for thinking that -- it indeed features cute pigs fighting attacking birds, with lots of silly music and sounds. Clearly the developers were influenced by Rovio's hit, if not actually trying to rip it off.

That's unfortunate, to a certain extent, because Pigs in Trees is actually a very different game. It's a line drawing real-time strategy title, which has you guiding planes (with, yes, pigs in them) after targets that are incoming to an airfield. I almost wish the creators had been a little more creative with their art and style, because the game is much more original and even interesting than it looks.

Like Flight Control, you're guiding multiple planes around by line drawing on the screen, but unlike Flight Control, the pigs will fire on incoming birds when they get close. Things start slow, but soon you're running a pretty intense battle around the map, using power-ups to try and hold off the invading hordes. It's fun, and even a bit challenging, especially if you really try to min/max the combo system.

Full Game Center integration keeps the game playing even after you've cleared all 60 levels, and the devs are including new content as quickly as they can. You may have missed Pigs in Trees last month on arrival, but if it sounds interesting, you should give it another chance at the US 99 cent price. This definitely isn't Angry Birds, even if the icon and art style makes it look so.