Peggle

It's Peggle...for the PSN...

For those of you who were in a coma, born into the wild and raised by wolves/apes (thus having no concept of modern technology), in prison, or in a technophobic cult for the last 10 years, Peggle is (and I put this loosely) a "puzzle" game. As a Peggler (Peggle player? Peggle engineer?), your goal is to fire pinballs at "pegs" under the guidance of some mystical animal/vegetable (for example, a unicorn, a frog, drippy space goo, a scary pumpkin, an Egyptian cat, you get the idea) that grants you special powers, which prevent your pinball from falling off of the screen, and thus hopefully hitting more "pegs". The colors are bright. The textures are shiny. The sounds are blingy and bright. I like kittens...

The game itself is simple and focuses on luck more than skill (although this might be debatable--for the weak-minded =D). That being said, the point of Peggle isn't to be a mind-bending puzzle game. Just like its Pop Cap brethren (Zuma, Bejeweled), Peggle accomplishes what PopCap wants it to. It's a casual, easy-to-play, addictive "puzzle" game. I've played Peggle on 4 platforms (even paid for it on 2). I swore that I would play it for five minutes to make sure it was the same game before I reviewed it. I said to my friends "oh man, Peggle...I'm going to review Peggle...This shouldn't take long." 5 hours later I was once again a "Peggle Master" having successfully battled my way through the Adventure mode. Whether you like Peggle or not (or are willing to admit that you like Peggle or not), it is FIERCELY addictive.

The single player game consists of either learning the power-ups of the Peggle Masters (the aforementioned beasties) across 55 puzzle boards, playing a one-off quick puzzle, playing the computer in multiplayer Peggle (which was a sticking point for me...as you will soon see), or unlocking and playing a much harder Challenge mode (instead of just clearing pegs, you have to hit certain scores). There's no real difference to any of the modes except that by challenging the Peggle Masters you get to see more puzzles. I liked the idea of multiplayer Peggle a lot, but it's execution was clumsy and not as fun as one would hope. I thought I would be playing something like Bust-A-Move-multiplayer-kind-of Peggle. What it turned out to be was just normal Peggle with players alternating turns.

In terms of value, it's hard to peg down for Peggle. It costs $9.99 on the PSN, but between playing online for free or paying less for "shareware" versions of Peggle, there would seem to be better "value" options for your PC if you desperately wanted to Peggle it up. Every other platform has free or lower cost variations as well. There isn't a clear benefit of getting it through the PSN. While the packaging is a bit nicer (brighter colors, crisper sounds than the PC version), it still is, at the end of the day, Peggle. It's just as addictive as any other platform, it just costs more.

I don't think I would buy Peggle. At the end of the day, Peggle will always still be Peggle. It's not that Peggle is a bad game, or that it's overly expensive for what it is, or anything like that. For my 10 bucks, I would rather get something not so readily available elsewhere. With the current sales Sony's been running on the PSN, I would rather try something new or different, like Braid or Flower, than stick with what is already free and familiar.