peggle deluxe

review

I AM A GODDAMN PEGGLE MASTER!!!!!!!!!!!!

peggle is dumb. it’s stupid. there is no reason this game should be fun in the slightest. it’s 55 glorified pachinko machine levels with silly powerups and weirdly uncanny theming.

and yet, here we are: i finished peggle in a single afternoon, that flew by FAR faster than it should have. the levels are designed weirdly well, like small puzzles. sometimes you’ll figure it out, sometimes the ball will bounce halfway across your screen 6 times and it’ll finish it for you. i enjoyed both.

it’s glorified gambling, without any of the stakes. there’s a little bit of skill involved, sure, and the power-ups help the game feel less like luck and more like shooting a wildly inaccurate BB gun, but at the end of the day, you are at the whims of peggle’s physics engine and whatever magic you imbued into the ball to make it go where you want.

i can’t in good conscience say peggle is an excellent game or anything. fun, sure, but incredibly random and slightly frustrating at times. but it is the definitive “arcade” experience, and i both love and slightly dislike it for that reason.

score

7/10

notes

• developed by PopCap
• published by PopCap
• released in 2007
• played on pc
• crossposted to backloggd