Review – Peggle

Here at PG, we spend a lot of our time rallying to the cry that games can be mature, creative and legitimately artistic endevours. These opinions, born of passion and persecution, are necessary when competing with the mass consensus that gaming is at best worthless and in some cases detrimental to society.

Occassionally though a game will come along that doesn’t have to worry about such things because it is so utterly, incredibly fun!

I refer, of course, to Popcap Studio’s unbelievably addictive creation Peggle!

Anyone familar with Popcap’s output so far will know that they specialise in creating the kind of puzzle games that can dissolve hours of your life without you even noticing. Past favourite Bejeweled (and it’s prettier, younger sister) and latest Plants Vs Zombies are master-classes in exactly what puzzle games should be.

The moment the game starts running you know you’re in for a treat. The studio’s humour shines through as you are informed whilst the game is loading that the characters are ‘just grabbing a coffee’ and ‘cranking the volume on Ode to Joy’. A little touch that would be lost on most studios, but not Popcap.

The premise of the game is simple from the start. You are presented with a screen full of different coloured pegs and you fire a little pinball from the top of the screen downward in an attempt to hit as many pegs as possible. Your only input is the pinball’s angle of fire, that’s it.

At first this is all there is to it; two different coloured pegs, orange and blue, of which you must hit all orange pegs to clear a level and a little pot at the bottom that moves from side to side that can catch your pinball to get a free go.

The learning curve is smooth enough and introduces little additions with each new level without bombarding the player. Different coloured pegs offering more points and power-ups and blocks instead of pegs to allow for sliding combos on some levels are just a few examples of how the game stays fresh without overloading the newcomer.

Visually the game is perfect. Bright and clear, you never lose sight of your pinball even when gameplay becomes a mass of blinking lights and explosions. The physics of the pinballs within the gaming environments are sublime and at no point do you feel cheated by a reaction you expected but didn’t receive.

The characters and game worlds are beautiful, wonderfully drawn creations and combine cartoon visuals along with the illuminous play of the pegs and blocks. The level designs brings to mind Lemmings in their inventive, addictive charm.

Also, there has never been a more rewarding and fun way of clearing a level as there is in this game. If you haven’t played it yet (and you have no excuse as the demo is freely available from XBLA and for PC on Popcap’s website) then we will not ruin the surprise. But rest assured, you’re going to absolutely love it!

Puzzle gaming perfection!

What does this mean?

- Mikey Base