Peggle is one of those casual games that is alright to be loved by hardcore gamers, at least that’s what I tell myself.  The game was originally released in early 2007 for the PC and was able to garner all sorts of rave reviews.  The basic concept of the game is to shoot a ball from the top of the screen in hopes that it will ricochet off of as many pegs as possible on its way down to the bottom.  Sounds simple enough, but there is so much more to it.

As with many games ported from the PC, the controls of Peggle for XBLA were one of my initial concerns.  The developers devised a great scheme for the Xbox 360’s controller that works wonders.  Your left thumbstick controls the ball aiming mechanism, but when extreme precision is required, you can simply pull back on either trigger.  This slows down the aiming mechanism to a crawl, allowing you to fire that ball into the tightest of spots.  The single player portion of the game is very time consuming, but in a good way.  You can play through adventure mode which requires you to clear the map of all the orange pegs to unlock new maps and characters, and later go through all of the specific map challenges to test your newly acquired skills.  I must warn you, the challenges are extremely difficult.  There are quite a few achievements tied to the single player portion of the game that will require many hours to attain for even the most seasoned Peggle veterans.  Peggle also allows you to compete against your friends over Xbox Live or on the same console with all kinds of varying gameplay.  With the sheer amount of characters, maps, and different ways to play against friends, Peggle will unexpectedly eat up nearly as much of your gaming time as your favorite shooter.

If you loved Peggle on the PC, the Xbox 360 version won’t disappoint.  If you are new to the Peggle-verse, there may be a couple of items that can get on your nerves.  Some of the characters are more useful than others, as in if you are playing a multiplayer game, everyone is going to pick between the same two characters.  This power struggle is easily fixed if everyone just agrees to use the random character generator.  Peggle can also be one big coin flip at times.  All of the orange pegs are randomly placed every time you play, so some maps can be ridiculously difficult by chance.  This isn’t necessarily a flaw, you just need to have patience to find the best place to fire your ball.

Peggle is a fantastic game for anyone looking for a challenging and engaging XBLA title.  It’s easy to pick up and play, but absurdly difficult to master.  You may spend hours on a single map, attempting to complete a single score challenge, but that is the joy of the game.  Peggle is extremely fun, extremely addicting, and extremely challenging so don’t miss out on the fun.

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