iPhone App of the Week: Peggle

Ahh, Peggle. It has wasted nights upon nights upon nights of my life. Now, the really popular Pop-Cap casual game has been ported to the iPhone to relatively good results.

So when you first press the Peggle icon, you'll see, as usual, the Pop-Cap logo, then the loading screen.

When you press "Touch to Play", you'll once again see a familiar friend asking you what your name is. After typing in your name, you'll see the main menu. Not exactly manly now...

Basically, "Adventure" mode is the primary quest of the game. You'll go through more than, I don't know, 40, 45 stages before you finish the game.

Typically, you'll see a so-called "Peggle master" who will aid you into finishing the game. They'll give you tips about their magic power before you start playing.

Now, here's a typical level. The objective, basically, is to be able to hit all the orange pegs using your balls. You'll have 10 balls at your disposal, but the "bucket" found at the bottommost part will grant you a "Free Ball" when you get to time your shot right.

Controls are pretty solid. You can just point your finger to where you want to shoot the ball, or you can use the "roller" prominently featured on the right side to make more precise shots. The "Fire" button will let you shoot that ball.

And for even more precision, you can double-tap the screen to activate the so-called "Zoom Cam".

When you get to shoot the last orange peg, the camera will zoom in and the game will go slow-mo to make you excited. It works, you know? When you do hit the last orange peg (because sometimes the ball won't hit it due to physics and such), "Ode to Joy" will go playing in the background to proclaim your victory. We will now engage the "Extreme Fever" mode.

Basically, "Extreme Fever" summons various holes onto the bottom part, these holes give you various bonus points which range from 10,000 to 100,000. Depends on which hole the ball will shoot into...

When the ball finally gets into the bonus hole, the "Fever Score" is computed and added to your total score.

But what if you run out of balls before even getting to the last orange peg, you ask? Well, you'll have to restart the whole level again of course!

So you may be wondering about that "Magic power" that the "Peggle masters" have. Well, if you hit the green ball, you'll be able to know what power they hold. It may be some magic power that lets you double the number of balls playing, or maybe it could be a power that lets your next ball become a fireball so that it can burn through the pegs. Purple pegs are the ones that offer higher points than blue ones, although its position changes every turn.

There's life after the adventure mode though. You can go into the "Challenges" mode so you can take on the various (hard) objectives you have to observe whilst hitting all the orange pegs (although you'll have to finish Adventure mode to unlock that)...

...and there's also the "Duel" mode where two players can battle each other in a level you finished in "Adventure" mode.

If you want to revisit a certain level and try to top your score, the "Quick Play" mode will get you there. You can only play the levels you've finished in "Adventure" mode though.

But what if you get a call or your battery is getting drained by Peggle? Well, you can just press the "Home" button and Peggle will auto-save your game, which is a really nice touch.

Not all is pleasant in this port, however, because for one thing, it runs like it's on an emulator or something. There are times when you press the "Fire" button and there'll be a few seconds of lag before it does fire, and there are times when "Extreme Fever" happens and the frames start to skip. Oh, and when you reach a certain "Peggle master" called Master Hu, get ready to wait 10 seconds before the owl's magic power comes into effect! And how about the background music, guys? It just disappeared altogether!

I don't want Peggle Parallels version, I want Peggle iPhone! Pop-Cap obviously needs to address some performance issues, but despite technical quirks, it's still the same addicting ball-shooting game every casual (and hardcore) gamer should have. It has unprecedented depth, but it's so simple that any mindless shot is okay.

Rating: 7.5/10