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Peggle Extreme.

At first, Peggle Extreme looks like a game you’ll love to hate from the cute cartoon animals to the bright and colorful backgrounds with sunshine and rainbows galore.  The screenshots and first impressions of the game just scream, “Bargin bin abortion.” Peggle does borrow a lot from other games like Bust-A-Move and Pachinko machines. (Japanese gambling devices that are a cross between pinball and a slot machine.)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pachinko

Peggle Extreme is a puzzle game from Popcap games who have made other flash based games like the excellent Bejeweled series.   It’s a 10 level game with backgrounds and themes based on popular Valve games like Portal, Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike, and Team Fortress 2. While touting itself as a full game, it’s really just a demo for the much more fanatical Peggle Deluxe.  The gameplay is simple, you have a stock of 10 balls which you must use to fire into a series of pegs on the map below to hit the orange pegs.  There’s several power-ups, point multipliers and other features to spice things up.  While only 10 levels, Peggle Extreme enjoys introducing a new feature every few levels to make clearing the next level not as easy as the last.

Each level and theme has little touches from Valve sprinkled all over the place.  From the Heavy Weapon Guy’s yells of pain if you lose to surreal background portraits of Portal’s companion cube.  One thing Peggle Extreme succeeds at is in it’s presentation.  It’s very flashy and it makes you feel awesome for beating a level on what would otherwise be a simple game. All of the animations and physics for the ball bouncing are top notch.  Instant replay allows you to save and show off those impossible shots you’ve performed to others.  If you can’t tell already, Peggle is pretty addictive.  Everything about the game keeps you glued to your screen to see what new tricks it will pull on you next round.

Peggle Extreme does have it’s negatives.  Being only 10 levels for starters.  It is kind of obvious that it’s a shill and demo for Peggle Deluxe but I really enjoy the Valve themed maps and artwork that it makes me wish there was more too it.  While there are some really skillful people at this game, (Just check out youtube’s Peggle videos) some of the maps seem more about pure luck of the ball than skill in getting those high scores.  For some people, they may hate the flamboyant style of Peggle’s presentation.  Some of it is possible to turn off in the options screen but that’s part of Peggle’s charm.

There is also a Duel mode for playing against another player or the computer.  While it’s fun to play against other players, against the computer is another story.  While the computer is pretty tame on normal through easy, be prepared for a spanking if you bump up the notch as the computer will seem to complete absolutely impossible shots with pin point accuracy and prediction.

Despite it’s problems, Peggle Extreme is a great addition to anyone’s gaming library.  It’s free when you buy The Orange Box from Steam which already comes with Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Episode 1, Episode 2 and Portal.  It’s just icing on a very tasty cake.  Until next time Peggle masters!

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