Angry Birds Knock on Wood review: Hands-on with Angry Birds board game

We've already experienced the unbridled joy that is Angry Birds plushies, but we can now report the furious feathered ones are continuing their march into the real world with an action-packed board game, brought to you by Mattel.

We simply had to give it a try, so click through the photos above to check it out and then scroll down to the bottom of the story to watch video of us putting the game through its paces.

Unleashed at CES 2011 in Las Vegas, Angry Birds: Knock on Wood will see you using a spring-loaded catapult to hurl little plastic angry birds into pig edifices. The game is won by utterly demolishing their porcine penthouses, and what kind of structure you have to wreck is decided by pulling out 'mission cards' that show different kinds of buildings. There are even little plastic stars to collect. Magic.

It doesn't sound like an incredibly deep game to be honest, but who cares? We're reminded of Mousetrap -- the game where we threw away the cards straight away, and spent endless happy hours playing with the spring-loaded plastic bits and pieces instead.

Sadly, rather than actual wood, the game uses variously shaped plastic blocks sneakily coloured like the in-game wood. We can't see Mattel opting for including blocks of glass or stone either, unfortunately.

Angry Birds: Knock on Wood will be released worldwide in May for the bargain price of $15 (that's around a tenner). We'd recommend buying 50 sets, and constructing an entire real-life house out of the combined bits of plastic wood, and then demolishing it with a well-placed yellow bird to the base of the structure. That'll be three stars please.

Fire birds using this plastic catapult.

The plastic birds are a sight to behold.

Ruffled feathers abound.

Observe your bacon-flavoured foes.

This black bird doesn't explode, which is probably for the best.

Here's the packaging. The game will cost $15 when it goes on sale in May.

But the battle will never truly be over.