Peggle Review (Android)

Written by Craig Will, puffkix Friday, 24 June 2011 05:00

My first experience with Peggle was with a brick of a phone that I had in 2006 through Sprint and it had me hooked right from the get go. Since then I've played it on Mac and tried the demo when it came out on XBLA. I've always preferred it in the handheld version though and the latest version on my HTC Inspire does not disappoint. 

Alright, so I am a little lame for dropping the ball on this one, but Peggle was free on the Amazon App Store yesterday (June 21). If you didn't pick it up yesterday, don't worry, it's only $3 anyway and totally worth that. In fact, that's pretty much a deal all in itself, especially if you've never had the chance to play Peggle. For those of you that have, this is the same Peggle you're used to with a few tweaks to make it friendly for your touch screen phone.

Buy Peggle Now at Amazon

If you aren't familiar with Peggle then here's the quick rundown: Start off by strategically launching a ball into a sea of multi-colored pegs and see how many you can hit before the ball gets to the bottom of the playing field. It's similar to that Price Is Right game, Plinko. There are a few twists though, like the green pegs that grant special power-ups depending on the mentor you choose for the level. The real object of each level is to clear the map of all orange pegs while racking up points by hitting the blue ones along with the point boosting purple peg. Points are based off a tiered combo system reliant on how many orange balls are left, how many pegs you hit, and what each peg was worth. Sounds more complicated than it is. Free balls are awarded after scoring certain amounts of points in one launch as well as landing your ball in the bucket that moves across the bottom of the screen.

Now for the new stuff, as seen in this image:

Things to notice? Mostly the little wheel to the right of the FeverMeter. Since the platform is Android, and main control comes in the form of touchscreen, there are times when tighter accuracy will be desired. Those times are when the wheel comes into play. Either set up a shot by touching a peg to get the general direction ready to go and fine tune by scrolling the wheel up or down, or double tap on an area and the screen will zoom in where you can use the wheel to fine tune to an even greater extent.

Another nice feature is the abiltiy to save a replay of the previous shot. So if something amazing happens and you want to have it to brag to your friends, or share via Twitter or Facebook or whatever it is kids are using these days, just click the little camera icon in the lower right corner after a shot and click the download button to save it and share it later.

Like I said, even though the deal to get Peggle for free is over, $3 is still quite the deal for this game. It's fun and slightly addicting; I've found myself spending hours trying to 100% clear every level in the past and will probably do the same this time around. The only problem I've had is the fact that the FeverMeter bell looks awfully similar to the "Fire" button in the top right corner and will find myself having to reset my shot after accidentally pressing that instead. Not a huge issue but a slight annoyance and definitely not something that should hold you back from making the purchase if you're even a little curious about this game.