Peggle
Katrina "ShadokatRegn" Pawlowski
PopCap - XBLA
Puzzle games tend to be somewhat of a gaming staple for me in between games. Fortunately, one of the top PC puzzle games made its way recently onto the Xbox Live Arcade to fill that in-between co-op gaming time and probably keep one from sleeping. Peggle, is addicting to say the least, and I've lost many hours at a time perfecting that peg bounce.
Peggle can be treated like kind of pinball game, but is a unique entity in itself. You have a ball, and a map of colored pegs. Your goal is to clear the map of all orange pegs in the shortest amount of time possible, while chaining tags on blue pegs to boost your score quickly. Your ball will bounce down the pegs (think of Plinko on the Price is Right) until it reaches the bottom; at which point you'll either lose the ball or it'll be caught in a moving basket for a free ball. Each chapter has a unique character with a special power on the ball, should you hit a green peg. For instance, one character will create multiple balls at once, while another will explode any pegs around the green trigger peg.
Added challenges after completing the “story” portion of the game, as well as a versus mode based entirely on points-per-shot, add a lot of additional play to the already addicting game. Seriously, this thing needs a warning label.
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