Gaming Trend

Gaming Trend Review

by Chris Miller

Peggle has always been a strange game.  Not strange because of outlandish stories, characters, or control schemes mind you, but because it somehow – despite having the simplest and most brain-dead of all possible gameplay styles - has this incredibly addicting quality that has caused huge chunks of my time (and money) to disappear.  Let’s be honest here, Peggle is really nothing more than glorified Plinko, yet it somehow manages to completely captivate both hardcore and casual gamers alike.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should probably mention that I’ve purchased the first Peggle game on every conceivable platform (PC, XBLA, DS, and iPhone) and have played through it about half a dozen times.  I still contend that it is one of the best casual games I’ve ever played, and is one of the very few games that me, my wife, and even my non-gamer parents can enjoy.  Given that background, you can imagine that I was pretty excited when Peggle Nights came my way to review, as Popcap has always made it a habit to improve and expand their games in sequels or add-ons.  Unfortunately, I came away rather disappointed by Peggle Nights (as you could probably guess by the score), but think the game certainly has it’s place.  Let me try to explain.

Here’s a Peggle crash-course for the uninitiated.  If you ever seen a Japanese Pachinko machine or watched Plinko on The Price is Right, you know exactly how Peggle works.  The screen is made up of a number of pegs and blocks that are either blue, orange, green, or purple.  The object of the game is to clear each level of all the orange pegs by firing steel balls from your cannon at the top of the screen.  Once fired, you have no control over what the ball does, and the remarkably accurate physics engine takes over.  You’ll watch your ball bounce down through the pegs, which light up when hit.  Once the ball gets to the bottom, all the lit  pegs disappear, and you shoot the next ball.   You’re given 10 balls to hit all the orange pegs, although you can gain additional balls by getting a certain amount of points (the purple pegs help by providing a big score bonus) or having your ball land in the ball catcher that slowly moves back and forth at the bottom of the screen.  Once you clear all the orange pegs, the entire screen goes into bullet time, “Ode to Joy” blares from the speakers, your ball drops into either a 10,000, 50,000 or 100,000 point bucket, and you move on to the next stage.

 

Each level is comprised of 5 stages of increasing difficulty.  There is a loose storyline and cast of characters that ties your progress together, but you won’t pay much attention to it.  The levels are themed to the characters, so the crime fighting unicorn may have a background graphic and peg layout depicting a set of handcuffs, and the scientist woodchuck may have one depicting a syringe or chemistry beaker.  Some of the peg layouts are pretty creative (and fiendishly difficult at higher levels), but the entire “story” simply serves as a way to move you from one area to the next.

To help you out, each character grants a “special power” that can be activated by hitting one of the two green pegs scattered around each level.  These powers range from a guide that shows exactly where the ball will go, to an explosive charge that lights up all nearby pegs, to a fireball that simply destroys pegs instead of lighting them up.  You only get two of these per level, so some strategery is required on when and where to deploy these powers to maximize their effect.

By this point, all those who have played Peggle are asking the question, “OK, we know all this.  What is new and exciting about Peggle Nights?”  And therein lies the problem.  In terms of gameplay, there is not a single thing different about Peggle Nights.  No new characters.  No new powers.  No new sound effects or scoring.  Nothing.  Nada.  Zip.  Zero.  Zilch.    The only thing different about this version and the original game is the background graphics and peg layouts they used for each level.  I felt like I was playing the exact…same…game that I’ve already purchased 4 times on different platforms.  This territory has all been covered before, and I couldn’t help but be disappointed that there was no effort to add even a tiny little bit of variety to the proceedings.

Peggle Nights is certainly a game that will keep you busy for a long time.  In addition to the main campaign, you can also dive into the many challenge levels that are a true testament to the skill (or luck) of any Peggle player.  Objectives like clearing 100% of the board are ridiculously difficult, and require an advanced mathematics degree to figure out the angles and ricochets involved.  You can also have score duels against a friend or the computer, but unfortunately this is off-line only.   The game tracks a huge variety of stats, but without any sort of leaderboard, there’s no real basis of comparison.  There is also a link to download additional levels and challenges, although there isn’t much there at the moment.

I know that as reviewers, we are supposed to judge games based on what they are and not what we expected them to be.  That’s what makes judging Peggle Nights on it’s own merits so difficult.  Having played and been completely addicted to the original game, I was hoping to something more in this version than a new coat of paint.  Let’s make a hypothetical comparison, shall we?  What if the Halo team gave Master Chief some new armor, made the enemies a different color, gave the Warthog 3 wheels instead of 4, then sold it at full price as “Halo Extreme’?   While people playing it for the first time would probably love it, anyone who was familiar with the series would be left saying, “That’s it?”.  It’s the same thing here.  This is a fine place for anyone who hasn’t experienced Peggle to start, and I would actually strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t already jumped aboard the Peggle train to do so asap.  However, Peggle Nights adds nothing to the franchise for anyone that has already played the original game.

I don't want to sound negative about Peggle, because it is truly a wonderful little game.  However, I feel like they're doing nothing but milking it with this version.  Bottom line is this:  If you’ve never played Peggle before, add 15 points to that score and buy this immediately.  If you’re like me and have already played it to death, be warned that there’s nothing new to see here and you may just want to move right along to something different.

Gaming Trend Score

71

1. Graphics: 70
2. Audio: 69
3. Controls: 75
4. Gameplay: 67
5. Value/Replay: 80
6. OVERALL:71