After teasing its newest installment in the beloved animal-flinging mobile gaming franchise last month, Rovio Entertainment announced Tuesday that "Angry Birds Go!" will launch on Dec. 11.
While previous "Angry Birds" games centered around deceptively complex physics puzzles that required the player to slingshot the titular feathery creatures (and occasionally their oinking enemies) from one side of a level to another to break down barriers and solve puzzles, "Angry Birds Go!" is shaking things up for the franchise.
As the new teaser trailer shows, "Go!" belongs firmly in the "kart racing" category — a subset of the driving genre that was first popularized with the legendary Nintendo 64 game "Mario Kart." Rather than just driving around a racetrack a few times, you collect a variety of cartoonish power-ups you can use to speed your vehicle or duke it out with any other karts unfortunate enough to get in your way.
Like the new "Angry Birds Star Wars" mobile game released last month, the "Go!" digital game will be complemented with Hasbro's telepods — a collection of "Skylanders"-style action figures that can be scanned into the game by way of QR codes etched onto the toys. These figures are optional, so they're less integral than the toys that come with new console games like "Disney Infinity" "Skylanders: Swap Force." But with prices ranging from $7.99 for a single vehicle to $29.99 for a full-blown "Jenga Pirate Pig" play set, they're also available at a much lower price-point than the $59.99 and $74.99 starter kits for either of those games.
"Angry Birds Go!" is launching on iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, and Blackberry 10 devices on December 10. Watch the new trailer here.
Yannick LeJacq is a contributing writer for NBC News who has also covered technology and games for Kill Screen, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. You can follow him on Twitter at @YannickLeJacq and reach him by email at: [email protected].
