Peggle Deluxe

[Plectrum Infusion]

Has anyone else treated themselves to this little gem?

 

It's only $10 on Steam, which given the delightful pounding that mighty sterling is giving the weakling dollar at the moment, works out to less than a fiver (although a bit more, when they add tax on, the bastards).

 

I dunno if it's $20 normally, it gave me a $10 discount which may have been because I'd already bought The Orange Box, so you'll have to check on that one.

 

The game itself is, in essence, so simple as to be almost embarrassing, you fire a ball out of a little cannon from the top of the screen and it bounces down to the bottom, bagatelle style, off a load of pegs and other bits and pieces. The idea is to get all the orange pegs/blocks within your shot limit (you start with ten), and ummm, that's about it - except of course, there are all sorts of little extras and subtleties and special powers that make it amazingly compelling.

 

The main adventure mode is of a decent length although not overly challenging, but that then unlocks loads of "Master Challenge" levels, some of which are truly fiendish. On the surface it looks to be a game of luck, but you'll discover that there's a large amount of skill and strategy involved to get through some of the tricker levels.

 

I find it's a very good way to unwind after having had my mind twisted into all sorts of horrible shapes by the advanced Portal levels.

 

Recommended - gets a rating of 827 bananas.

[ans]

At one point, I had 2x more hours played on Peggle than TF2!

 

I finished all levels, including the challenge ones. The ten in a row was a bitch.

[Plectrum Infusion]

I finished all levels, including the challenge ones. The ten in a row was a bitch.

 

I'm working my way through the challenge levels now, and even fairly on, some are requiring multiple retries (the 55 orange pegs for example) - it's such a joyful game to play I'll probably see it out right to the end, despite the frustrations.

 

It's a bit like poker in that you have good runs and bad runs, so you play what should be good shots and get fucked over, and then you get cross and fire off stupid shots only to find the most amazing run of luck sees you hitting multiple orange pegs and getting the free ball score bonus as well as landing the bucket as well, and it can happen shot after shot.

 

It's all so nicely put together that it's hard to get cross, and when you finally nail a really tricky shot to get the last orange peg with your last ball, aaahhhh, Beethoven has never sounded so sweet

[ans]

I was most pissed off when I migrated to a new PC though, I can't locate where the Peggle details are stored so I'd have to play through the whole bloody game again to unlock everything. Sod that, there's just too much other stuff around right now.