Pocket Gamer 20th anniversary: 2009 - Angry Birds takes flight and keeps soaring

Welcome back to our Pocket Gamer 20th anniversary celebrations, where we take a look at what was happening during each year of the site's time covering the latest and greatest in mobile gaming. Today, we're reflecting on 2009, a huge year for one particular reason that I'm sure many of you stalwart mobile fans will recall. For those a little more in the dark, it involves some irked avians. But first, as is tradition – three times makes a tradition, right? - we're going to set the scene. So close your eyes, and I'll transport you back to 2009. Actually, wait. Don't do that. That won't work at all. Just read and imagine.

Culturally, the main reason 2009 sticks in my head is that it was the year that 3D cinema became a thing before eventually fizzling out as something that appeared front and centre. I remember my dad thinking it was the greatest thing ever, so I rolled with it despite being largely underwhelmed. The main perpetrator for my father and everyone else heading to the Odeon or their local equivalent, sporting those black-rimmed glasses, was James Cameron's Avatar, a film about giant blue people that was more visual spectacle than anything else. Not that the story mattered, it still made approximately loads at the box office.

I think other films came out. If I recall correctly, there was one with a few sparkly vampires, another with men who cosplay as cars and one about a bloke who tied a few too many balloons to his house. He just floated away down the street. Poor guy. Very sad. Anyway, nothing too major or popular then.

In music, Britain's Got Talent runner-up Susan Boyle released I Dreamed a Dream, and it did very well, becoming the best-selling album that year. I've not heard it personally, but good for her, I say. For me, John Frusciante's The Empyrean, Braid Paisley's American Saturday Night and Mastodon's Crack the Skye were the standouts. All three are a little different from SuBo, that's for sure.

As for PC and console gaming, well, everyone I knew went crazy for Assassin's Creed II and Modern Warfare II while I stood there trying to figure out what the fuss was all about. It also saw Minecraft launch its public alpha, and I doubt anyone knew how massive it would become back then. For me, though, there were two standouts: Batman: Arkham Asylum and Pokémon HeartGold. In the case of the former, my save file became corrupted about halfway through and rather than give up in frustration, I was more than happy to retrace my steps. It meant more bone-crushing fun!

And what about the wonderful world of mobile? Well, 2009 was the year that the iPhone truly took off. The 3GS version of Apple's device boasted a GPU that doubled performance, meaning that it could handle games like no other phone on the market. With the App Store already up and running, the takeover could commence. And commence it did. It was a time when mobile managed to truly stand apart from PC and console, with developers making excellent use of its USP: the touchscreen. 

Zen Bound

One of the first to do it was Zen Bound, a puzzler that tasked you with painting a series of wooden ornaments. To do so, you had to wrap a length of rope around your beautiful carving, with sections given a splash of paint whenever one was tied up. The tricky part is that there's a limit to the rope's length, meaning it took a few tries to find the most efficient way to wrap your ornament. It was controlled by rotating the object using the touchscreen, a seemingly standard choice that genuinely made you feel far more involved than a mouse or controller would. 

Flight Control

Elsewhere, Flight Control proved that a simple concept didn't mean a lack of intrigue. Tasked with directing the flight path of planes and helicopters, your job was to help them land safely. At first, that's not a big deal, but once the day started to get busier, everything became a lot more frantic as you traced your finger across the screen with increased urgency. It possessed that 'one more try' compulsiveness that distracted many a student from whatever lesson they found themselves in. 

Angry Birds

Finally, as I alluded to earlier, through the power of a synonym, 2009 was when Rovio's Angry Birds took flight. And pigs have never been safe since. The straightforward conceit of catapulting avians at towers occupied by circular piggies gripped the world, with 12 million sales in a year. Why? I largely believe it's because the catapulting mechanic itself is just so tactile that it makes everything immensely satisfying when toppling the pigs' humble abodes. That and it’s kinda cute. Kinda cute, never hurts.