Pigeon Squadron Review

In Pigeon Squadron you play as a bird in the avian air force during a time of war. The stakes are high, and your mission requires an extremely specialized skill set. But it is your great honor to serve your nation and all of bird-kind by flying over enemy cities and dropping... poop.

Yes, like the seminal iPhone classics Pigeon Poo and Berd Terd, this is another game about warm excrement raining from the sky. While our tolerance of potty humor on the App Store ran its course long ago, it's to the developers' credit that the game manages to be stylish and fun enough to make us look past it.

Each new level starts with a mission briefing from your commanding officer, explaining who you must poop on and why. The reasons may differ, but each level has you flying around and delivering your goods to people, animals, or objects in the environment.

During the game, you get an overhead view of the city, with your bird flying solo in the middle of the screen. Well-calibrated tilt controls guide your bird's movement, and a missile button releases his feces. The direction of your targets is indicated by arrows at the edges of the screen, so you never have to worry about getting lost. Once you find a target, you'll fly overhead, tap the button to drop your payload, and book it out of there.

People aren’t fond of birds with leaky bowels, however, so they’ll throw things at you that cause damage. You wouldn’t think golf balls or canes would stay in the air so long, but in this game they hang there for what seems an eternity. If you fail to dodge enough of them, you'll fail the mission.

Depending on how many targets you hit within the time limit, you’re awarded a bronze, silver, or gold medal at the end of each mission. There are 45 missions spread over three environments, but they’re all very similar. All you have to do is poop on targets and avoid projectiles. We would like to see some more variety in the gameplay, but it's still a fun game that's a breeze to control.

And the whole game is infused with World War II era charm and patriotic music that make Pigeon Squadron feel fresh in a way other puerile games on the App Store don't. Pooping is the game’s gimmick, but the art, music, wit, controls, and gameplay are what make it a game we can recommend to anyone with a dash of potty in their humor.