30 Reviews in 30 Days, Day 24 – Peggle
Some games are just addicting in a way that really defies explanation. Tetris was that type of game. All we actually did in this game was complete lines, and yet we played it for hours on end. If you think about it, there are probably several different games you could list in this category. Just think of those games you go back to time and time again and yet really cannot explain just what draws you to them. I bet you’ll come up with a few. I certain can.
To me, Peggle falls into this category. At its heart, this is such a simple puzzle game, but I would dare anyone to spend a little time with it and not get hooked.
All you do is launch the ball
When it comes right down to it, the gameplay for Peggle is extremely simple. You have a little cannon launcher at the top of the screen. You use it to aim at the pegs on the board, the plan being to send the ball ricocheting off those pegs. The majority of these pegs, which in later levels can be bricks, are blue, and hitting them just gives you points. The pegs you need to focus on are the orange ones; to advance to the next level, you must hit all of them. Every time you fire a ball out of the cannon, you use up one of the balls in your stock for that level. Run out of balls before you hit all the orange pegs, and you do not advance to the next level.
That’s it. That is the basic gameplay. Seriously, that is the basis of the entire game. Now granted, you do get the ball slowing down when it is about to hit the final orange peg, and if you do hit it, ‘Ode to Joy” starts playing as your ball travels to the bottom of the screen to get your bonuses, but that is the whole point of the game.
It may not look like much, but Peggle will keep you coming back for more.
It’s the ways the game designers tweak the game from there that makes it so addictive.
Gems, Powerups and Extra Balls
Remember how I said you use up one of your stock of balls every time you fire one out of the cannon? Well, you can gain extra balls in the game, which makes it easier to pass levels. You can gain these extra lives, if you will, a couple of different ways. The easiest is to make sure your ball drops into the little cup that moves back and forth across the bottom of the screen. The other way is to score enough points in one shot that you earn an extra ball. You do this by hitting more pegs in a single shot or by accomplishing skill shots, which are ricochets that occur over a great distance.
Then there are the purple pegs. Before each shot, one of the blue pegs will turn purple. If you hit this purple peg, you get a higher score for that shot. Once you hit a certain number within the level, you are taken to another board where you use the bumpers to bounce the balls and collect the gems to gain more points, which in turn gives you extra balls.
The green pegs are the ones you really want to hit, however. Each level will have two green pegs. Hitting these pegs will activate a special power. The power varies based on what master you ware working with in the adventure mode. They include such abilities as gaining a guideline that shows where your ricochet is going to go, fireballs that will go right through pegs, magic hats that highlight any pegs they touch as if the ball hit them or the zen shot, which adjusts your shot just a touch to give you a better score. These power ups are what really makes this game so addicting.
In the end, Peggle is not some phenomenal, groundbreaking game that makes you rethink puzzle games. It is incredibly addicting, however, and I guarantee you will find it very hard to stop playing. It may not sound like much, but trust me; you just need to try it to get hooked. Peggle gets a 4 out of 5.
