The term “casual game” might be poison to some people’s ears but I think even the staunchest opponent of the casual game movement probably has a secret soft spot for PopCap, especially in regards to their catalog from before the days of in-app purchases and pay as you go business models. It’s been almost 7 years since the original Peggle was released and the casual game market has changed dramatically during that time. Peggle 2 does a good job updating itself to fit the modern landscape including both the good and the bad.
Peggle (for the unaware) is what comes out when Pachinko and Bust A Move make a baby with one another. The player controls a cannon and shoots balls down a pre-determined mess of pegs. Although pegs come in a few different colors the player is only obligated to knock out all the orange ones in order to complete the level. While the game does have a healthy dose of skill that can be applied to it, it’s also just random enough that it can make even the most incompetent gamer in the world look like they’re a god at times.
So what’s new in Peggle 2? Well to start we get an (almost) entirely new cast of Peggle Masters each with own unique power to help you clear the levels. Now the masters have a permanent seat next to the Peg board and will react appropriately to your successes and failures accordingly. Each character is animated nicely and has their own unique personality and backdrop. A personal favorite of mine was “Jeff” who is essentially The Dude from The Big Lebowski in troll-form, complete with a destructive bowling ball for a power up.
The new powers are appreciated but occasionally feel too similar to abilities in the last game. I would say the most unique power in Peggle 2 belongs to the pants challenged Yeti, Berg, whose icy breath scatters clumped-together pegs before clearing them from the board, and even his power becomes dramatically less useful as the game presents you with levels littered with “bar” shaped pegs which are unaffected by his breath.
You’ll find new objects scattered around the map as well. These include armored pegs that require two hits to clear and bumpers that will send your ball careening across the map, usually extending the longevity of your shot in the process. These new items add a bit of strategy to the game but ultimately don’t push the status quo very much.
Unfortunately PopCap’s dark partnership with nickel and dime lovers, Electronic Arts, can also be felt heavily in this new entry. Peggle 2 only features 5 masters which you’ll notice is less than half of the number that appeared in the original game. There is a spot sectioned away for “upcoming content” and it’s ultimately up to you to decide how terrible it is that you couldn’t just have all of the game out of the gates but it is, nevertheless, a disappointing thing to see.
I was also a little disappointed to see that some of the levels in the game caused performance issues on the Xbox One. Nothing heinous but enough that it was noticeable. Normally I wouldn’t mention it but this is a little extra disappointing because this isn’t exactly Gears Of War 4 we’re talking about here.
The game also doesn’t seem to have a solid grasp on how to effectively use the Xbox’s recording feature. The game will liberally help itself to creating clips of your play, particularly on the trial levels where every failed attempt seemed to warrant sharing a game clip with all my friends. By the end of some of the levels I would have 10 useless clips of myself failing.
Peggle 2, much like its predecessor, is a lot of fun. The game hasn’t evolved too much in the past seven years which can feel like a let down sometimes but its easy enough to forget about it and just have a great time knocking out pegs. As of right this moment the game is exclusive to the Xbox One but you can almost certainly expect it to land on every platform imaginable over the course of the next year, and if you’re a fan and can ignore some of the more glaring problems I would say it’s definitely worth picking up.
