Don't Like Facebook But Want To Play Angry Birds Friends? Then This Update Is For You

Angry Birds Friends has just received an update that's apparently small yet actually significant, especially to players who happen to be Facebook-averse. Originally launched by Rovio as a Facebook game over a year ago and released on iOS early last May, Angry Birds Friends adds some classic friendly competition to the classic Angry Birds bird-flinging and pig-popping gameplay. Through its integration with Facebook, Angry Birds Friends lets you challenge your friends on the social network, play in weekly tournaments, and send and receive gifts. Indeed, logging in to Facebook was required in order to play Angry Birds Friends prior to today's update. But with the game's latest update, you can now play Angry Birds Friends even without logging in to Facebook. According to the update's release notes, Rovio removed the Facebook login requirement in response to "valuable feedback from the Angry Birds community." If you can't see the video embedded above, please click here. Beginning with the new version of the game, you can now log in and play as a guest in Angry Birds Friends. But logging in and playing with Facebook integration does have its advantages. Connect to Facebook if you wish to play with your Facebook friends and be able to send gifts to them, collect daily rewards, and earn bird coins, 200 of which are instantly given to you upon connecting. Also including "some small improvements to give you an even better experience," the new version of Angry Birds Friends is out now in the App Store. The game is available as a universal freemium download for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad running iOS 4.3 or later. Angry Birds Friends is the sixth title in Rovio's Angry Birds franchise, excluding the spin-off game Bad Piggies. First came, of course, the original Angry Birds game, followed by Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Space, Angry Birds Star Wars, and Angry Birds Friends. A new addition to the series is already in the works in the form of Angry Birds Go!, which, as teased by Rovio a month ago, may turn out to be either a racing game or an endless running game. [gallery link="file" order="DESC"]