14 DAY TRIAL // Google touted its Chrome Web Store during the Google I/O keynote and launched it internationally. To showcase the power of the web store and of Chrome itself, Google also invited Rovio, the company behind the hugely popular Angry Birds, to debut the web version of the game.
Shortly after the keynote, Angry Birds became available in the Web Store for anyone to install and start playing. The game is the same Angry Birds that you've probably seen on the iPhone or iPad, on Android devices and countless other platforms.
"You can now play Angry Birds on the web! Go check out the game in glorious high definition resolution on the Chrome Web Store," Rovio announced.
"This is only a beta release of the game, and so far we have 63 levels of the original game available, with an additional 7 special Chrome levels!," it explained.
"We are working on bringing more levels to Chrome, and planning on making the Mighty Eagle available as an in-app purchase option," it added.
It looks and plays the same, however there are several Chrome-themed bonus levels. And, despite being available from the Web Store and being clearly linked to Chrome, it even features the Chrome logo when loading, it works, to varying degrees, in other modern browsers like Mozilla Firefox.
More interesting than the game itself is the technology used. Rovio, the game's maker, wanted to provide the same experience on the web as on any platform.
Angry Birds for the web leverages several modern technologies, it uses HTML5, for offline local storage for example, as well as WebGL for hardware accelerated graphics. If your browser doesn't support WebGL, the game switches to HTML5 canvas for the graphics.
Technologies that wouldn't have been available to developers even a year ago make sure that the game not only looks great, but also that it works offline, enabling users to take a crack at a couple more levels even if they don't have an internet connection.