Peggle Review

[Ling Baus]

Peggle2 has seen the introduction of another character to its zany roster of Masters, or in this case it might be considered more of a reintroduction as Jimmy Lightning from the original Peggle is back.

By now it is no secret that I am a big fan of Peggle 2. I loved it when I reviewed it for the Xbox One, and later found the the Windy the Fairy DLC to be a welcome addition as well. These DLC packs are addressing one of my early complaints about Peggle 2. I did not have many of them, but a sticking point was that the roster was lighter than I would have liked, with fewer of these Masters characters and their unique special abilities to use than we were given in the original game.

If Windy the Fairy and Jimmy Lightning are any indicators, PopCap Games is on to a good thing with this DLC strategy. Ringing in at a couple of bucks each, you get 10 new levels, 10 new trials, 30 new objectives (three per level), 3 unlockable costumes and 3 new achievements. These are nice enough in itself, but for me it is really all about the new character. I love seeing the expressive characters showing off to the lower left on the screen, and Jimmy Lightning is certainly no different on that front.

I hope you won't mind if I put on my "new games journalist hat" for a moment, but I was pretty thrown when my editor asked me to review Peggle. Peggle is one of the new breed of casual games, and like most casual games there's not a lot you can say about it. Unlike normal games, there isn't any dreadful voice acting or inevitable sewer level to take the piss out of. What I can say about it is that I started playing it around noon and emerged from my room sometime later to find that the authorities had declared me legally dead.

If the whole casual gaming thing has slipped you by, then allow me to hold your face under the putrescent waters of knowledge. At some point in the recent past, someone noticed that simple, Flash-based 2D colour-matching games like Bejeweled were making frankly embarrassing amounts of dosh, and the reason for this is that as time has gone by, bored housewives stuck at home have all independently decided that shagging the TV repairman is no longer appropriate and have turned to video games to amuse themselves instead.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and presume that you, the viewer, have had a mother at some point. And you may at some point have seen her attempt to play a mainstream video game. In most cases, this is like watching a cat trying to fly a kite. So it's easy to understand why this new demographic of gamers has exploded the popularity of uncomplicated, easily picked up games for old people and stupids.

Peggle is a game by PopCap, Popcap being the biggest developer and distributor of casual games, and basically plays like a combination of pinball and BreakOut, dressed up with bright colours, an impressive soundtrack, and animal mascots dripping with insincere cuteness. Basically, you have to hit a certain amount of pegs with a limited number of balls while getting help from powerups ranging from very helpful to profound waste of time. Like with pinball, the game keeps talking about skill but is mostly about luck, because elementary chaos theory makes it virtually impossible to predict where a ball is going to go beyond maybe the first two ricochets unless you've got a degree in geometry from the University of Smartarse.

There are about, ooh, 130-odd levels of incremental difficulty, and after you beat them all you get a graphic of a nice trophy. In summary, it's okay, I guess. I preferred Bookworm Adventures, but then I'm one of those hopeless mutants who genuinely enjoys playing Scrabble. That's it. That's about as far as I can review Peggle because that's the entire extent of the game.

I don't know what PopCap's mission statement is, but I betting that it's something along the lines of "use pretty sparkling lights, encouraging sound effects, and as few gameplay elements as possible to make the gaming equivalent of premium crack cocaine." And it seems to be working for them, because they are now worth umpteen millions. Millions! They exclusively make cheap-o 2D games. What the hell do they spend all that money on, ice cream?

Some people think that all this is killing the mainstream gaming industry, because why the hell would anyone want to make a murderously complex top-of-the-range title with full 3D up the arse when they could make just as much with a 2D game about catapults flicking balls at coloured squares, but I don't support that point of view. PopCap's success isn't really hurting the mainstream gaming industry. But I will say this: it could very well be hurting the casual gaming industry.

You see, with their less complexity and lower production costs, casual games are an ideal starting point for new developers to get their name out and some cashflow going. But PopCap's big stacks of cash make it easy for them to buy the best talent and come up with more and more relentlessly addictive ball-bounce-a-thons that overshadow everyone else's efforts. It's unfair, isn't it? Once your funding hits the seventh digit, you're supposed to start making Gun Battle Slap Fight XXXVII for the PlayStation 12 and leave the colour-matching tile puzzles to the bedroom programmers.

Don't be fooled by the adorable, fluffy animal facade PopCap's games erect. Inside, they're a ruthless bunch. If this were an '80s sports movie, PopCap and the other large casual game developers would be the evil team, the snotty, fabulously rich kids with tailored uniforms, the ones the shabby underdog heroes have to beat in the film's conclusion in a narrow but heart-warming victory.

Sorry, this is getting a bit tangential. Peggle, then. I wouldn't say I like it, in the same way an alcoholic doesn't usually claim to like alcohol, but it's a handy little time-waster when you're trying to put off writing a review, and if you're a husband, you could buy a copy for your housebound wife. Then maybe she'll stop badgering you for sex.

With all the talk recently about Peggle, I was surprised that it hasn't been reviewed (although it did get a "quick app" and a pick of the week) so I thought I would download and give it a try. And, well, Peggle has managed to crack my "regular game rotation" that currently consists of only a few other games.

Peggle is a game based on skill and luck, similar to Pachinko. Your goal is to shoot balls into a pachinko-style board with "pegs", trying to remove all the orange pegs and blocks within a certain number of shots. You can have various power up abilities, lucky shots or skill shots increase your score, and you can earn extra balls by "saving" your ball as it falls or by scoring a certain number of points within a shot. The enjoyment on Peggle comes from two main factors in my mind - the various power up abilities and the variety of boards.

If you start playing in adventure mode, you are led through the game by ten "masters", each of whom has a different power up ability. As they guide you through the game, they teach you the details and the best ways to use their abilities. Once you finish with them, you go back through the same levels with the option of choosing the power up ability you want for each board.

The second biggest positive from the game is the variety of boards. You start off with a simple pachinko style board, but they gradually become more and more complex - with bumpers, with moving parts, with time warps, etc. Each level has specific characteristics that make it challenging, so no two levels will be played the same way. As your progress through the adventure mode, you get various trophies to add to your collection (I am currently running through them the second time in "Master" mode).

There are other game modes as well. Quick play lets you choose a level to play by itself. Challenge mode lets you play a specific levle with a specific challenge (beat a certain number of points, more orange pegs than normal, etc). And dual mode is a two play battle where you play on the same board against either the computer or a friend. Unfortunately, the dual mode is a "pass the iPhone" multiplayer so you can't play via wifi. I was also hoping to see a direct battle where you are both shooting balls at the same time (and can interfere with each other) but that doesn't happen.

Let me just add, when you finish a level, they play Ode to Joy. There nothing quite like having that blast from your iPhone to actually make you feel like you have accomplished something! The game can be replayed multiple time because the placement of the orange pegs (as well as the various power-up and other pegs) are randomized so your strategy can vary even when replaying the same level!

All in all, this is really a great game. Aside from the few minor wishes I had for multiplayer, I could find nothing wrong with this game, and it has "earned" a spot on my permanent rotation of games. At $4.99, the price isn't cheap, but it is well worth it for a game that can be played over and over.

You start as a character known as Bjorn, a unicorn with special powers. The characters in this game are simply avatars that represent you in the game and give you a special powers to help you advance through the puzzles more efficiently.

The objective is to win 55 stages of puzzles by removing the orange pegs with a limited number of balls (like the Plinko chip). Mixed with the orange pegs, you'll find one purple peg, two green pegs and an abundance of blue pegs.

A level is completed when there are zero orange pegs left in the stage. Firing your ball towards a set of pegs starts a shot and you watch the ball drop down to the bottom of the stage. At the bottom you'll find a basket that quickly moves left to right and back again as the shots play out. If you manage to drop your ball into the basket you'll get it back as a "free ball."

The difficulty ramps up gradually and allows you to get used to the game design without instant frustration. Before long you'll come to realize you're not just dropping the ball in the pegs hoping to tap it off a few oranges. You'll be timing your drops, angling the shots "just right" to get a perfect bounce all while attempting to hit that moving basket at the bottom.

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