Parents' Guide to Angry Birds Casual

The latest installment in this popular game series offers well-paced challenges that should entertain adults but are also easy enough for younger kids to play. The game doesn't throw an overabundance of new power-up items at you to help you advance in each round. That allows players to practice using the birds' abilities -- one, for instance, explodes on impact. While the action moves steadily, rounds have more than one block formation and feature progressively challenging, yet not frustratingly hard elements, so they don't whizz by too fast. In some, items get lifted by a bubble and dropped to the ground, offering a greater impact. In others, players try to pop balloons to release a Hatchling.

Each round needs to be completed using a given number of moves. At first, that isn't too hard. But as you progress, if you run of moves out before freeing all the Hatchlings, you can use coins you've earned for a few more tries. Coins can be slow to earn, though, so you'll likely burn through what you have quickly and be directed to the app's store to buy a coin package. You can instead use the hearts, or lives, you're given at the start of the game to extend rounds. But those, too, won't last forever. If players are fairly skilled and have the patience to really consider the best moves to make, they may not run into any issues. But if they get stuck on a particular round, they may have no other option than to buy coins -- or stop playing Angry Birds Casual until their lives refill, which can take 25 or so minutes. If players can wait that long, they may find Angry Birds Casual to be a fun way to spend time, while rescuing some little birds that are clearly in trouble.