It’s the World of Peggle, a flashy crossbreed of pachinko and pinball… and crack addiction. With the nice graphics, Peggle Masters and trajectory physics, Peggle easily fills the need for those who are wanting to kill time and don’t want to wait on the load screens for New Super Mario Bros.
Is it drugs? No, just kind of psychedelic.
So how is this done? You’re faced with a board of orange & blue (or alternate shapes in colorblind player mode) and your job is to remove all the orange pegs from the board to get to the next level. By firing your Peggle gun at the top of screen, tiny balls bounce off the pegs on their trip to the bottom. Hit pegs are cleared and since you’ve got a limited amount of balls, you hopefully will be able to make it into the ball catcher at the bottom. Sound easy? That’s what they all say. Once you fire, physics becomes your friend or your bane.
Goodness gracious great balls of fire!
The game may sound basic, but the vivid backgrounds and the quirky Peggle Masters add to the ball bouncing entertainment. The Peggle Masters are bunch of animals that have a unique power-up. Power-ups come from striking green pegs that show up among then orange and blue pegs. Some are very useful, while others not so much. My personal favorites are Owl and the Rabbit. Zen Shot and Magic Hat respectively. In the original Peggle, randomly moving pink pegs were used for bonus points, but in the DS cart once you strike 5 of them, you get to visit the new "Underground" areas where you can collect crystals towards extra balls and even more points.
Masters of the Universe!
The underground! Let’s go mining!
Now lets talk hands-on game play. As controls go, I rather liked the fact you could use the stylus to aim and hold to zoom and/or use the directional pad. You can use your A button to fire once you’ve aimed or use the L or R Buttons when in zoom/stylus mode. Very precise if you need it, like the mouse in the PC versions. I personally used the D-Pad more.
The music is a bit repetitive, but for the most part matches the level you’re playing in. When you pass a level you get a rousing Ode to Joy. Hopefully you’ll get the highest 100,000 point catcher. Oh and if you clear all pegs, all catchers become 100,000 points.
Zoomed In! LOCK ON!
In terms of content, this DS card is stuffed with a ton to keep you playing. The game comes with the 1st Peggle game and the originally PC exclusive Peggle Nights. Also Q Entertainment designed levels have been added. This adds up to over 125 levels to play. The Q levels were fun, since I never played them before, but personally they didn’t have the same feel as the original designs. There are also challenges once you’ve earned your Peggle degree. The Dual mode is a Vs. mode that allows you to challenge a friend, or the computer, to any level you’ve cleared and utilize any of the Peggle masters you’ve passed. It’s fun, but I would have liked to have had this ability a wireless mode rather than having to hand the DS to my buddy.
We’ve got the biggest balls of them all!
Overall, I like this edition of Peggle for the DS. Former PC Peggle players (say that 10x fast) may feel let down if they’ve already beaten Peggle and Nights on their PC, but it’s still a great time eater and will have a lot of content for those new to the Peggle world. Q Entertainment and PopCap games did deliver on the DS-ified version and additional content. So welcome to the world of Peggle…get your fix as needed.
I didn’t know they made peggle for the DS! Man this is some great news.