Popgames recently lowered the price on their iPhone version of Peggle on the app store for a limited time. Of course, at only 99 cents, its hard to refuse, so I bought my first copy of Peggle to try on the growingly popular mobile platform. The experience translates well and maintains its addictive game play.
The first impression Peggle makes is in its vivid title screen. As the game loads, music plays, as if the game were waking up. Short bites of witting writing accompany the loading bar. Phrases like “turning gears,” or “coming up with witty sayings” break the barrier between the player and the game. Any pessimism towards the colorful graphics and charm is assuaged.
The main menu is the next screen the player sees. Here you’ll select from the adventure, quick play, challenge, and duel modes. Selecting one of these will bring the player to the specific game mode. Each offers the same core element of play, but the subtle nuances will add replay value. Even if you’ve already mastered the adventure mode, challenge mode will ramp up the difficulty and the specific objective of play. Quick play is titled appropriately as people who are messing around with your iPhone (how dare they!) will probably want to jump right into the game. Duel mode is the only multiplayer mode and it focuses on you and another player passing the phone back and forth while competing for the most points.
The general premise of Peggle is best conveyed through the adventure mode. In adventure mode, you’ll learn the basic ins and outs of Peggle play as each board increases in difficulty. Peggle is basically a fancy game of Plinko (from The Price is Right). You’ll aim your peggle ball from the top of the board. After firing, your peggle ball will react according to natural physics, bouncing off the pegs. Each peg is color coded. In order to clear a board, you must hit each orange peg. Blue pegs are extra points, while green pegs enable special abilities. You’ll rack up points as you ricochet around the board, until you finally fall off the bottom. If your ball lands in the moving cup, you’ll get an extra shot. Generally you’ll have 10 shots to begin with.
What makes Peggle so special? Why do people play Peggle? Plainly put, Peggle makes the player feel empowered. The average shot will rack up tens of thousands of points. And the game lets you know this through big sound effects and colors. The final shot that clears the last orange peg is accompanied by a drastic zoom in. As the peggle ball nears the last peg, slow mo raises the drama. Near misses will have a player smacking their forehead. But you’re never afraid of trying again, because when you do finally clear the board, Beethoven blasts and fire works fly. This all adds together to make you feel like you’ve gotten the highest score imaginable. Players who want to get a little deeper into the game will want to check out their stats and attempt to increase their score.
Unfortunately, the Peggle sale has ended, but you can still snag the game at a mere 4.99 on the App store. Honestly, I was considering picking up the downloadable title at that price but was reluctant. Look out for another sale as current sales die down again. If you want to try before you buy you can probably find a trial version of Peggle somewhere around the internet, but this will be for the PC version. Even so, the iPhone version is nearly identical to the PC version so very little will be lost in the translation.
You can read more of Daniel’s writing on video games at playreadwrite.blogspot.com.
