Falling Pieces

PopCap’s habit of appending “Deluxe” to all its new games befuddles me. If this is the first iteration of something, isn’t it—by definition—the baseline? Shouldn’t only subsequent, expanded versions of a game get the “Deluxe” moniker? But my befuddlement’s passed, thanks to PopCap’s latest game, Peggle Deluxe. It’s all so clear to me now: “Deluxe” doesn’t refer to the game, but to its life-consuming potential. With that in mind, Peggle Deluxe might be better titled Peggle Deluxe Extreme Super Dynamite. Download this front-runner for Casual Game of the Year at your own peril.

At first glance, Peggle doesn’t look too promising; it’s a strange hybrid of pachinko and PopCap’s own Zuma, with the cutesiness of Bonnie’s Bookstore. Seriously. Your job in Peggle is to shoot a little ball into a field of pegs, with every peg the ball strikes being cleared from the field once your ball’s done ricocheting. Every field has about 20 orange pegs that you must eliminate before you run out of balls. It’s just that simple.

What’s not so simple: how insanely hypnotic and addictive Peggle is. Two levels into the Adventure mode, you’ll be irrevocably hooked and trying to recall all that high school geometry you thought you’d never need, just so you can line up a perfect shot. As the peg fields grow more challenging, the game compensates by giving you increasingly effective power-ups like multiballs, fireballs, or a Zen ball that plans your shot for you.

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