Before we start part 2, I suggest you cast your minds back to to the beginning of this adventure. You recall Puzzle island: it’s peaceful yet nonthreatening atmosphere; the belief that the worst thing we’d be dealing with would be the crushing realisation that we’d been abandoned by our parents; getting to frolic with the fox and the pigs and solve mysteries? I look back fondly. I thought that this would be lovely, family friendly journey of joy. I was wrong. I was so wrong.

We wake up this time not on a beach, but instead on a huge dais. A better description would be that Tequila works took an Aztec pyramid, and lopped off the top. The room we are then sitting in is huge. There’s no way this tower doesn’t have some Harry Potter tent magic going on, because already this is far bigger than any part of the tower we’ve caught a glimpse of. The top of the pyramid is littered with the last casualties of Pompeii which is giving us a big hint that this chapter will not be as lovely as the first was. As opposed to the first statues we found, where you could shout or brush into them to some sort of positive reaction, all that happens is these things crumble to dust. Did I mention this chapter seems to be where shit gets dark?

If this wasn’t enough, Tequila works decided to go one step further and really up the ante on making this area as dark and creepy. Ever seen Happy feet? You know the plateau/overhang the penguin elders hang about on, shouting down and refusing to dance from? Imagine if someone took that and said “Yeah, we should populate that with Dementors with feet.” That is exactly what we’re facing. The whole room is bordered by giant bleachers of stone, covered with these strange apparitions that our viewer Sakage pointed out where strikingly similar to the guards of Azkaban. Now I know, I know, this is references and pop culture galore, but I solemnly swear, there will definitely be more. I apologise I just wanted to start this off with….A RiME.

Angry Birds – Puzzle Island Edition

Already, we’re going into this expecting things to be a little darker and nowhere near as fun. Area 1 was just so lovely, but it finished with the horrific super storm cut scene that started to shed some light on why we appear to be reenacting a cross over between Cast Away and Crystal Maze. We have no immediate puzzles in any of the starting rooms, just sand and broken jars. We do find a magical wall mural that lights up. It gives us a look at 3 huge windmills, a storm and a large bird. Can you say foreboding much?

We move on and outside we find something we are familiar with – It’s another daylight orb! Now we’re getting somewhere. We move the orb around, controlling the fricking sun until a statues shadow is unlocking half of the mystical doorway. Now we just need to climb up and fill in for the other and we are golden. Life is a fickle bitch though. We are very rudely interrupted by Skeletor’s pet eagle, who in dick fashion takes our orb and fucks off.

Slight tangent – If moving this orb around this circular track had some sort of power to move the sun, what affect do you think wrenching the orb from it’s position would have? Personally, I think it should have darkened the sun, like Zhao and the moon in Avatar, but I want to know your thoughts too!

Back to the Bird. This dicknut swoops in steals my orb and just chuffs off. I’m pissed. Our boy is raging. He get’s to marching across the bridge separating us from the bird. I’ve got to say, He doesn’t look so big and scary sitting all the way over there in his nest. Across this really long bridge. And up a ramp. OH GOD. As the bird rears up and begins to charge I realise too things. One, the basic principle that things far away look really small, and two, I really want us to jump from this bridge to the sand below. Funny that.

We reach our golden grainy safety and take refuge in what looks to be some sort of temple remains. The walls are sandstone, and there are decorative torch sconces every so often. I’m getting the impression here that one of the games designers just came back from a historical holiday and was really moved by ancient architecture. Not only do we discover safety, we are introduced to a new mechanic for the game – Whenever we step out from the temples, into the open air, we are greeted with a loud klaxon like call from the bird. Slowly, the screen is tinged with red. The ominous glow creeps in, so of course the scientist (Sky-entist should I say. No, I shouldn’t) in all of us dictates we should see what happens if we just stay still. In similar fashion to the orb, we are snatched from the earths gravitational clutches. Key difference though. The orb was made of some sort of golden alloy that gave it the wonderful solar controlling characteristics that it did, and made it very sturdy. Tough. Not squishy. It’s not often I have to compare myself to something as Squishy, but it is a very key point in this moment, because where the orb was unharmed, we are, what I like to call SUPER HARMED. I mean, did you see those talons? That bird grabbing us is baaaad news.

Take two. What have we learned? Shelter gooood. Bird baaaad.

Dodging from shelter to shelter, we make our way to the base of one our fabled windmills. When I say windmill though, I don’t mean those lovely charming picturesque little buildings you see on postcards from Holland. No these look like something from a super villians plans for world domination. The bulk of it is a large glass container, and inside is what I can only describe as…Venom? Yes, the containers are filled with a swirling, writhing mass of viscous darkness. Eddie Brock’s symbiotic alter ego is the only thing that comes to mind. Let’s keep Tobey Maguire away – we’ve all seen what it does to his dance moves.

Traumatic memories aside, this stuff is actually crucial to us it seems. There are two blocks on either side of the windmill we can remove, which releases Venom into the sky. A storm cloud in a bottle. Wrong marvel character it seems. The cloud enables us to move freely around this particular area with no fear of the bird. Seems he’s not figured out how to fly under the darkness, and cannot see us through it. A fairly useless development, as we have finished this area and need to move on, but there is one change – The temple area is now populated! Our dementor-esque friends have filled the village, and this time we are on the same level so we can run over and get a good look at them. Sort of. Upon our approach, they seem to shift away in panic until dissolving into the ground. They reform a short distance away, only to repeat the process as we approach again. Weird.

One bird, three windmills

Our next area is much the same. The key difference is just that instead of running from shelter to shelter, we are swimming to underwater caves. Thankfully whatever bird this is, he isn’t one of those ones that can dive under water and catch fish. We do get a new mechanic; this one is an added darkening of the screen, but since it happens when we remain under the water for too long, I have an idea it might be the “Don’t drown!” alarm. We don’t need to test that one. We have to find some keys, the puzzles are much the same and we are once more rewarded with a storm in a windmill. I’m still confused as to what ancient civilisation our game designer boy got this from, but I like it. It seems each area introduces something different to the last, but keeps the objective of Storm needs to be freed.

So we’ve had a desert temple, an underwater temple; I expected great things from area 3. I was let down. We are now seeking shelter in a village. Of course, when I say village I mean dissipated abandoned shanty town that needs to be destroyed for the good of humanity but, that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. The new feature here is that shelter is not a permanent thing. As if the bird had the same idea as me (what does that say about me if I share the same though processes as this devil bird?) the shanties can be destroyed after we hide in them once. We gotta run. NOW.

Thankfully our final stop before the last windmill is some sort of Naruto tribute village. There’s a lot of climbing and hiding up close to the bird, but everywhere we look we see the symbol of the wind village. Top it off that we’re activating windmills and in a huge desert, I’d say that halfway through this, one of our designers realised he had a thing for Gaara. We soldier on to our third and most difficult windmill, but it is oh so satisfying to release the final cloud. Our mural depicted a storm and the bird, but it missed one big thing. It turns out the storm was summoned for the express purpose of Fucking that bird brain up. Seriously. He’s learned that he can’t see us from above the clouds and swoops down and it’s like Zeus was up there just waiting. For the first time ever, he’s decided that instead of having sex with a problem, he’s going to use his lightning bolts to fix things. It couldn’t get better, right? WRONG. Our broken windmill means the only way out is to climb out and guess where we are? The end of the bridge next to a huge Birds nest. Why Hello Mr Orb of the sun, aren’t you looking radiant.

One issue is that we have to enact Shadow murder to get our orb back. The nest sits atop a ramp, and now that we’ve summoned perpetual night, some dementor chaps have formed on the bridge. The orb is too heavy to carry, but with a little nudge we can go 10 pin bowling and fire it right back home. It’s a small price to pay for our own puzzle solving needs.
I’m sure it’s the last thing we have to deal with in this area.
I am also sure I need to stop talking. As we run after our glowing emissary of shadow death, a noise turns us to look around. The bird is back. He’s lost a lot of flesh (Honestly, I didn’t realise he had any to begin with, but you can tell he has.) and he is looking worse for wear. Understandably. His wings are clearly useless, so this is just going to be a good old fashioned race to the finish line away from the murderous clearly carnivorous dinosaur bird. Let’s go!

Last minute, fate decides to smile upon us as the bridge just happens to undergo some very forceful remodelling. The bird is dragged down, what with having no decent wings to use. We’re free.

We finish the sun puzzle and the door opens. The area staircase that will take us to our next no doubt depressing flashback and a new wonderful location. What horrors new adventures await?

Let’s find out.

-BrightStarFOX