Angry Birds HD gets new levels, Game Center, and Mighty Eagle in update

Rovio isn’t done with the vanilla Angry Birds game just yet. Even though its currently doling out daily levels for the festive Angry Birds Seasons, the Finnish developer has just dropped a monster update for the original game. On iPad, at least.

Some of the new features are designed to get the often-lagging tablet edition up to snuff and in line with its pocket sized iPhone cousin. The app now packs Game Center support, for example, letting you gun for achievements and compare high scores through Apple’s social gaming service.

But other features are brand new: the Frontier Badlands theme is a whole new world, following The Big Setup from the last update, and comes with 15 new levels to play, and a brand new golden egg to find.

The Mighty Eagle also finally makes its debut appearance. This giant bird lets you bypass any stage by hiring the eagle, who will swoop down and destroy every pig in the stage. She has a fee, though: a real in-app purchase of 59p / 99c / €0.79c.

The update is available now to everyone who owns Angry Birds HD. Presumably a similar feature bump will appear on the iPhone edition (and eventually, Android) soon.