Peggle Deluxe review

Peggle is a very cool game. Developed by PopCap and distributed by BigFishGames. It's like an evolution on Breakout where instead of having a paddle to at the bottom and you bounce a ball around to break bricks, you basically shoot a ball as a projectile from the top and to pass a level you have to hit all the orange pegs/bricks with just 10 balls. At the bottom of the screen you have a big container going left to right, and if the ball falls in this container, you don't loose the ball you have just shot.


You only shoot one ball at a time, and you then see how the gravity together with some physics will effect the ball to hit the pegs making the level. When the ball goes to the bottom of the screen, the pegs/bricks that you hit are cleared from the screen.



When you're going to hit the last orange peg/brick the game zooms in the action and goes slow motion. Very nice effect. Sometimes you can miss it and you will hear a sigh from a crowd, but if you hit it, it's a feast of eye candy. The ball leaves a colorful trail, a rainbow with cycling colors is splashed on the screen and some powerful classic music (which I believe is used in the eurovision transmission starting theme song) is played. Fireworks are also sent off when the ball deposits itself at the bottom of the screen where an extra bonus is given depending where the ball falls, the middle giving the highest points.




Besides the orange targets and blue pegs (which are just obstacles in the level), there are also green objects which when hit will give you a special power-up depending on the current stage you are in. Examples of power-ups are

• trajectory prediction so you will see where the ball will go after the first bounce,
• multiball where the ball is split into two balls (image in the effect if you hit multiple green objects)
• container extension where the container at the bottom will expand so you don't loose the ball so easily

Later on you will also have moving objects rather static on the screen. There is a nice touch to the controls where you can fastforward a bit the time. So if you have a rotating set of objects, and you want to wait for the objects to get in the right position, you can right click your mouse and you fastforward time. Nice :)




The game is very polished. It is colorful and good for all ages. Very addictive too. My girlfriend didn't want to stop playing it :). The music and sound effects are also excellent. The backgrounds are just right, they give enough color to the level but not distracting - they keep the focus on the objects you should be targeting by not being high-contrast images. I suggest you give it a spin ;)

Download Peggle Deluxe