Firstly – apologies for the awful pun in the title. I just can’t help myself sometimes.
I stumbled upon Peggle through an unexpected, backwards means – Peggle 2. Since the launch of the Xbox One, new titles have been somewhat lacking, and one of the things I most enjoy is the feel of booting up a new game for the first time. So, when Peggle 2 was released on Xbox One, and I heard good reports from Rob of the PTP team, I decided to splash the cash (£9.99 of it) on it. It sucked me in immediately, so much so that I decided to splash even more cash (69p!) on the original Peggle app so I could play on my commute to work.
Turns out it’s one of the best 69p’s I’ve ever spent (not that there are many things I’ve actually spent 69p on in my life…two Mars bars and a Chomp perhaps?).
Don’t let the rainbow colours fool you – this is a challenging bugger of a game
For those who don’t know, the aim of the game in Peggle is simple: You are given a board with a number of coloured pegs on it, a certain number are red. You have a certain number of balls to shoot from the top of the screen to hit all of the red pegs to win the level – while scoring points for chaining together multiple pegs in one shot.
A typical Peggle level
Simple? Well, not quite. Along with the red pegs, you also have a large number of blue pegs, which can make placing and predicting where your shot will go very difficult indeed. On top of this, you also have 2 green pegs per level, which will give you a certain power-up, depending on which character (Peggle Master) you are playing with – ranging from crab-claw flippers at the edge of the screen to a “zen-master” who can nudge your next shot to ensure you get the optimum outcome.
Nothing better than Awesome Beaver
The campaign mode in Peggle is fairly straight-forward, and in many ways acts as an extended tutorial – introducing you to the various Peggle Masters, their abilities and the mechanics of the game while not stretching you too far on completing the levels. Peggle begins to get really interesting with its set of Challenges, of which there are 40 in total. These range from duels against AI players, to beating a set score over a number of levels to beating 3 levels with only 10 balls in total, getting progressively harder as you work your way through them.
These kept me busy for weeks, and every time I bested one of the later challenges it felt like a real accomplishment. This continued until I was left with just one challenge, the second last challenge in the “Insane Challenges” section, where you had to score 750,000 points on a single level. Gulp.
The final hurdle…or is it?
After over a week of trying to beat this little bugger (and steadfastly avoiding Google and YouTube), I finally managed it on my morning commute. Cue trying desperately to restrain my urge to jump up and down and kiss everyone around me – something the would not have gone down well considering mere eye-contact is considered an invasion of personal space on the Tube. I sat back to enjoy Peggle awarding me my certificate of general awesomeness…
This is going at the top of the CV
I smiled contentedly to myself and began to think about what app I could get into next, when suddenly another screen popped up:
Goddamn it, Peggle!
What?! I’m not done?? But I just spent weeks doing those challenges…you gave me all of 5 seconds to savour that, Peggle, before dropping this on me. You are a cruel, cruel master.
But, alas, who am I to turn down a challenge as presented by a magician rabbit, a sunflower, a pumpkin, a beaver, a crab, an owl and a….I have absolutely no idea what that is. Obese cat? Mutant chipmunk? Anyway, over the next few weeks (months?!) I’ll be trying to work my way through the levels, all 55 of them, to become Extreme Grand Master of Peggle, while sharing my progress with some videos here. If I manage to succeed, no doubt Peggle will then demand that I repeat the feat in one sitting, while standing on my head to become Uber Grand Master. And I’d probably give it a go – until I passed out.
In the meantime, I’d strongly urge you to give this game a go if you haven’t before – and dare you not to become addicted.
– Dave
Pass The Pad Games 