I fell in love with Popcap’s Peggle last year for good reason. It’s an impossibly fun brightly colored time waster suitable for small children, older kids, teens, adults, men, women, above-average hounds, and even grandparents.

The game features a clever series of pegs, usually making a humorous picture. Most pegs are blue, some are orange, there are a couple green ones and one purple one. The idea is, using 10 balls fired by a cannon (bonus balls are possible based on score) from the top of the screen, you must hit all the orange ones. Struck pegs disappear and the boards are wildly varied, as is the cast of whimisical characters and their wacky special powers (green pegs grant powers). The game is huge and best of all – really BEST OF ALL – everything slows down and the camera zooms in when the final orange peg is struck. Fireworks are your reward, along with the chance for a bonus between 10,000 and 100,000 more points and Beethoven’s Ode to Joy plays loudly.

It’s simple, colorful, and sublime. Gaming nirvana.  Yay!  Sequel time!

Peggle Nights imagines the strange denizens of Peggle Academy as dreamers. Turns out our Unicorn friend (his green pegs let him predict ricochets) wants to be a superhero and the anthropomorphic flower (who has  a flower power power that turns nearby orange pegs to flowers) dreams of legs and travel. Etc., All the previous Peggle masters are here with differently themed levels and they added a Squid to the mix with a cool electro-power.

There are also a series of wicked Master Levels at the end.

How do I know that?  I got the game at 5pm.  I took 1hr for dinner and 45 minutes of kid/bed time. Then I finished the game at about 12:30am.  I just couldn’t stop playing!  This isn’t a problem since Peggle is a very replayable game (each board can be played with each master and the powers do make a world of difference in terms of strategy).

The $19.95 might seem pricey – I’d pay it, heck I re-bought the Orange Box because there’s a handful of Half-Life themed Peggle missions in the latest bundle! – but this is a lot of game, a lot of entertainment, for a lot of people in your family.  Also look out for bundles. If you can get another great Popcap game like Zuma, Bookworm Adventures, or the original Peggle along with this one, you’ve found a great deal. Also, each purchase gets you three downloads too, for Mac or PC only.

Now, Popcap… GET THIS GAME ON IPHONE!

KID FACTOR

My kids both love Peggle.  I sometimes use it as a reward for room cleaning, etc., I don’t let them play too long. Just long enough to brighten their day with a little Beethoven.  Dad gets to marathon play it because it’s for work.  Right?  For work.

Tags: Misc