Peggle

Okay, it's Peggle. This game probably doesn't need an introduction (it's PopCap, after all, the 800 pound gorilla of studios that make little games), but here we go -- Peggle is like Breakout played on a Pachinko machine.

This is a good game, of sorts. It's almost a stretch to call this a game, it's more like an incredibly clever toy.

In my childhood there were always interesting puzzle-based toys anywhere we'd go for vacation -- at the lake house, in whoever's cabin we were borrowing, those sorts of out of the way places -- and this game reminds me of those things. These things were always interesting diversions, but only for a limited period of time. As it always goes, you can be sure that we stay wherever this toy resided long enough to become so bored one would wind up playing with the thing way, way past the point of disinterest.

Another way of putting this idea, maybe, is that Peggle has the feel of a game one has played a million times and the activity itself has become completely perfunctory. Like playing a game of cards for a few hours with the same people, no one stops to ask who's supposed to deal or what the score is or whether anyone needs another beer. Everyone just knows, things progress like clockwork.

So it's fairly interesting that Peggle has this feel from the outset. This is a game everyone has played before, even if they've never played it before.

Then, of course, it's made by PopCap. This isn't a little software project, it's a goddamn huge software project. Reading the credits for the game is a staggering experience -- all those people contributed to this tiny little thing?! Well, yeah. This is a game that has been through more QA than some full-priced current generation console titles. It's been released on more platforms than one can probably name off the top of one's head. Of course tons of people worked on Peggle. Loads of resources were poured into making this game.

All that effort really shows, too. Peggle is ridiculously polished. Here's a niggle, though, relating to this particular version of the game:

Perhaps it would have been a good idea to not put the "fire" button in line with the scrollwheel thinger the player is using to adjust the angle of the launcher? I can't say that this was some sort of gigantic tragedy, because I only ever won through luck anyway, but I definitely launched more than a few balls inadvertently because my finger swiped a bit too high.

Now there's a real problem -- it shouldn't matter that I'm not looking at what my fingers are touching when I'm playing a game. That's basically the whole point of video games, that feeling of immersion where the controls disappear and you're just projecting yourself entirely into the virtual environment. With this touchscreen crap, though, everything feels the same. That scrollwheel thinger feels the same as the button that's right above it. It's all just the same seamless glass surface. As I'm watching the screen, waiting for the right moment to fire the ball, I can't say for sure whether my thumb is hovering over the fire button or if it's slightly off to one side or another. (My thumb was, pretty often, off to one side or another. Again, not a huge tragedy -- nothing happened when I failed to press the button. But, still.) So this is something that's just retardedly stupid about trying to play video games on a device with no buttons.

On the other hand, it's worth recognizing the fact that I was so engrossed in the details of this bouncing ball that my gaze regularly became focused on an area so small I couldn't see what my fingers were doing an inch or two away. That's pretty impressive. This is definitely an engrossing little game (or toy, if you buy my previous argument).

One last criticism: the art here is pretty bad. It's color is garish, the characters are poorly drawn and the composition is cluttered. ...Yeah, I still kind of like it, but it is pretty crappy. I mostly hated the music, too, although the Ode To Joy bit was probably my favorite move in the game, as far as stylization goes.

I played all of the "adventure" portion of the game and a few of the challenges.