September 19

September 19 is the 262nd day of the year (263rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 103 days remaining until the end of the year.

Events

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is a video game franchise created by Finnish computer game developer Rovio Entertainment. Inspired by Crush the Castle, the first game in the series was initially released in December 2009 for Apple iOS. As of October 2010, 12 million copies of the game were purchased from App Store. The company then released ports of the game for other touchscreen smartphone operating systems, including Android, Symbian and Windows Phone. The franchise has since been expanded to include video game console and PC ports.

Angry Birds has been praised for its successful combination of fun gameplay, comical style, and low price. Its popularity led to many spin-offs, versions of Angry Birds being created for PCs and gaming consoles, a market for merchandise featuring its characters, a televised cartoon series, and an upcoming feature film. In January 2014 there had been over two billion downloads across all platforms, including both regular and special editions: as of July 2015, the series’ games have been downloaded more than three billion times collectively, making it the most downloaded freemium game series of all time. The original Angry Birds has been called "one of the most mainstream games out right now", "one of the great runaway hits of 2010", and "the largest mobile app success the world has seen so far".An animated feature film based on the series will be released by Columbia Pictures on May 20, 2016, and the first main-series sequel, Angry Birds 2, was released on July 30, 2015.

Angry Birds Star Wars

Angry Birds Star Wars is a puzzle video game, a crossover between the Star Wars franchise and the Angry Birds series of video games, launched on November 8, 2012, first for Windows, iOS and Android devices, later also to Mac and BlackBerry. The game is the sixth Angry Birds game in the series. The characters are copyrighted from George Lucas's double-trilogy. On July 18, 2013, Rovio announced that Angry Birds Star Wars will be heading for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U and the Nintendo 3DS on October 29, 2013 in conjunction with Activision. As of August 2013, the game has been downloaded over 100 million times on its various platforms. The game is a launch title for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

On July 15, 2013, Rovio announced a sequel, entitled Angry Birds Star Wars II. It is based on the Star Wars prequel trilogy and the television show Star Wars Rebels. Angry Birds Star Wars II was released on September 18, 2013.

Gameplay

The game combines elements of both Angry Birds and Angry Birds Space, featuring levels that take place on both standard terrain and in outer space. The game begins on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker's home planet, moves to the Death Star, travels to Hoth, then Dagobah, and ends up in Cloud City. With the exclusion of Blue Bird, all the Birds are given new powers not yet seen before in a canon Angry Birds title, some of these that are upgraded as the game progresses further. Players can re-play previously completed levels with the upgraded abilities.

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

The first film in the series, Star Wars (later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope), was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans, compared to the original trilogy. All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise." In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.