Peggle Review – The Big Bounce

Bob Barker and his demented Japanese lover have brought you The Answer.  Wrapped up in the compact package that is your Nintendo DS, Peggle Dual Shot is the gift that keeps on giving whenever your tiny mind asks the question, “How can I efficiently murder the rest of this afternoon?”

Know not you this game, Peggle?  It’s simple, really.  Take the best parts of puzzle games, pachinko (or let’s say The Price is Right‘s ‘Plinko’), and wide-eyed cartoon animals, and blend until frothy.  Simple.  Essentially, your job is tto ake your limited number of balls, and fire them around a puzzle board in an attempt to knock out all of the orange-colored pegs.  Simple, minus the fact that there are other colored pegs that laugh at you and maniacally stand in the way of your vailant little ball’s virtuous flight path.  On top of that, you’ve got other sorts of pegs that multiply your score or give your ball magical powers, courtesy of your kooky-eyed animal ‘teachers.’

 

If any of this sounds confusing, it’s really not.  Trust us.  The beauty of Peggle is its complete simplicity.  Peggle is nearer to a pure videogame than any in recent memory.  At least, the purest that hits that sweet spot of simplicity-meets-bells-and-whistles.  And this is where Peggle Dual Shot comes in.  Being the first truly portable version of the game, it’s also the most complete.  Peggle Dual Shot gives you literally every piece of Peggle goodness released thus far.  Included in the game are the full versions of the PC’s Peggle and its sequel Peggle Nights.  That’s over fifty levels of bouncing per game; not to mention the numerous extra features: there’s a challenge mode, there are extra levels designed by the DS developer, and a two-player mode (sadly not playable via system link).  So, yeah, that’s a lot of bounce for your buck.  Publisher PopCap has set out to give you a hefty serving of gaming goodness here, and Dual Shot delivers.

 

The only real downside of this new version is, understandably, what also makes it great: it’s portable.  The game has begged to be made available to portable systems, as it’s perfectly suited to quick sessions of on-the-go gaming.  What suffers a bit, then, is the original PC version’s bright and clean sugar-rush visuals, which were actually presented quite attractively when all was said and done.  The DS’s smaller size puts a bit of a damper on that, but not in a way that truly distracts.

 

                      

All in all, Peggle Dual Shot is Peggle, only portable.  The best ‘pick-up-and-play’ game of the past decade is in your pocket, and there’s hours and hours of it.  What’s not to like?  You’d be a fool not to give it a shot!