PopCap’s biggest hurdle with Peggle is the theme. There is a lot to enjoy here for the $5 asking price, and it’s very easy to enjoy, too.
POPCAP BLOCK SHOOTER PLUS
Peggle has fifty-five levels, each varying more than Bomberman’s, as well as additional “Grand Master Challenges” if you beat the main mode, plus a two-player duel mode that lets you play any stage you’ve unlocked. Bomberman, an aged but popular game that was just released for the iPod, can be torn through in an hour or two thanks to its relatively brief selection of 20 levels and four bonus stages. There is also a lot to like about the game’s value equation. Though somewhat out of your control, the results are exciting and fun to watch, accentuated by “style points” for tricky shots and amusing comments from the game’s animal avatars. For instance, as you prepare to hit the last red block or peg in a level, the game shifts into a slow motion “Extreme Fever” mode, plays a classical audio track, and gives you an opportunity to score a 100,000 point bonus. It would be hard for us to offer more praise for PopCap’s game design: not only do the levels change-and with them, the background art, music, and magic powers such as multiball or well extension-but the company actually successfully integrates humor, excitement, and new challenges into the experience.
Lucky or skillful shooting will keep your supplies up, and the game going on. When the ball falls to the bottom of the screen, it either lands in a moving well, giving you another ball, or into an abyss, leaving your stock of balls depleted. Blue pegs disappear without a trace, purple ones give you bonus points, and green ones trigger stage-specific magic powers. What happens next is the surprise: Peggle’s gravity and peg arrangements make the ball fall in pachinko machine style, bouncing around blue, red, purple, and green pegs that either sit still or rotate around, using the iPod’s 3-D rotation effects for convincing motion. All you need to do is spin the cannon, using a trail of white dots to predict where the ball will go, and fire off your shot. Peggle’s game play is just right for the iPod’s limited controls: more cerebral than action-intense.
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