9 Video Games That Got Away With Being Total Rip-Offs

4. Angry Birds

What It Ripped Off: Crush The Castle. If you own a smartphone, chances are you've downloaded Angry Birds at some point. Flinging birds at buildings full of pigs and cackling like a James Bond villain as they come tumbling down has a universal appeal. It certainly sounds like a unique concept, but it isn't. Rovio stole a lot of Angry Birds' game mechanics from a flash game called Crush The Castle. So, what are the similarities? Well, in Crush The Castle you use a trebuchet to launch rocks in the air in an attempt to kill all of the enemies hiding in the castle to the right of you. As we all know, in Angry Birds you use a catapult to fling birds at pigs hiding in various structures loosely put together with wooden planks. Once you compare the kinds of projectiles in both games it's clear that Angry Birds wasn't just inspired by Crush The Castle - it full-on ripped it off. In Castle Crashers you start with a small boulder, then a slightly bigger boulder, followed by one that breaks up into three smaller boulders mid-air and finally an explosive boulder. Angry Birds uses the exact same projectiles, the only difference being that they're mildly cheesed off birds and not rocks. There's no doubt about it, Angry Birds is a shameless rip-off that Rovio cleverly tried to hide with cute aesthetics, which actually ended up being one of the biggest reasons why it became such a hit. After all, the birds and piggies are original and charming. It's just a shame that the games that they star in aren't.