10 Terrible Pieces of Merchandise Angry Birds is Pushing Its Luck With This Christmas

I’m starting to get more than a bit tired of seeing Angry Birds everywhere. Yeah okay, flicking birds at pigs is fun enough in short stints, but let’s not kid ourselves, the game’s no masterpiece. The success of Angry Birds is based on it a) being the only title casual gamers who buy iPods and iPads actually recognize, and b) the fact that it costs a buck.
Now, you’d think the makers of Angry Birds would adopt a humble attitude considering 90% of their success can be chalked up to “right place, right time”, but you’d think wrong. According to Birds developer Rovio they’re soon going to be bigger than Disney and all non-bird flicking gaming is pretty much doomed because come on, why would you want to play anything else when you’ve got Angry Birds?
But it’s not Rovio’s obnoxious attitude or the mediocrity of the games themselves that bugs me most. No, what really gets on my nerves is the tidal wave of cheesy Angry Birds merchandise washing over us this holiday season. Never has so much disposable crap been based on a property so insubstantial. Rovio and Angry Birds have had one hell of a lucky run, but if they keep the sell-out train racing along at this exhausting rate, the luck’s going to run out soon. Hit the jump to check out some of the crap Angry Birds is really pushing its luck with this Christmas…

Sooo, what? Is this just an Angry Birds themed game of 52 pick-up where you hurl the birds cards at the pigs cards? Screw the rules, that’s how I’d be playing.
Who needs an iPad when you have a small piece of cardboard with some holes punched in it? They should have had the courage to call this what it really is though — “Angry Birds Cornhole”.
I’m using the word “clever” very very f–king liberally here.
For those who played Angry Birds and thought to themselves “man, I wish these little bird fellas could be rubbing against my penis all day.”
More stupid board games that ignore the fact that Angry Birds is already a game so you don’t need a damn board/card/cornhole game.

The goal of this one seems to be to build your own Angry Birds stages and see if the other player can knock them down, but of course they can, because they only give you like, 10 little pieces of plastic to work with. Here’s how I imagine a typical game would play out…
1) You spend 20 minutes making your little real-life Angry Birds stage
2) Your opponent knocks it over in two seconds with a single shot.
3) You return the game to its box never to be touched again.
The most galling thing about these games is that instead of just giving you a decent number of pieces to build with in a single box, they make you buy two games, each of which only contains around 10 pieces. Guess they have to make up for only charging a buck for the video game this is all based on somewhere.
Make breaking up with her over the Holidays just a little bit easier.
They still make slap bracelets? Man, now all they need to do is make Angry Birds clackers and they’ll have the “crappy stuff you got in birthday party goodie bags in the mid-90s” market all sewn up.
Sorry military, it’s time to retire dog tags and come up with something else to use. Any badassery once associated with dog tags has now been permanently snuffed out by our friends at Rovio.
Perfect for those looking for a costume that screams “throw things at me!” At least it appears to be well-padded.
Oh f–k off. Here it is, the epitome of laziness. They couldn’t even be bothered to print the bird’s face on the ball at the proper size — it’s far too large and stretched out looking. That said, this ball’s a good size for chucking at people you see playing Angry Birds on the street. Every grey cloud has its silver lining.