Parents' Guide to Angry Birds Evolution

This funny action-RPG starts strong, but quickly descends into bugging you to pay for progress. You'll be happy as a lark powering-up its hilarious new bird fighters; with their varying powers and clever references to public figures, they're fun to play and a real hoot to collect. Still, once you get to around level ten or so, you'll find the free-to-play fun gets as endangered as the Dodo. In order to level up fighters, you need two things: gold and "fodder" - low-level birds to fuse to your high level ones. These things are won by fighting, fulfilling missions, and by using your scout team to search for them. What you discover too soon though, is it's hard to have enough of those essentials. Levels can't be replayed without scouting, and limited scouting runs means waiting for timers to tick down. Sure, you can fill some time creating or joining clans, participating in weekly events, or taking on other players in the "Oinktagon," but eventually, things come to a halt as the app makes more and more demands for money. It even goes so far as to suggest you sign up for an auto-renewable subscription at $24.99/month, and that ain't chicken feed. Still, it's a tempting idea. Provided you have a sizeable nest egg, Angry Birds Evolution has a ton of flighty fun in store for you. And if you don't, well, you might go away from it as mad as a wet hen.