Be Excellent To Each Other

Thought I'd have a wee change so tried out the multiplayer stuff last night, Peggle Party is awesome. Had a few matches and gradually got better against my foes after sussing out some of their high scoring tactics. This game gets better and better.

I completed the Adventure Mode last night (sorry for ignoring Peggle Party invites - wasn't in the mood). What's everyone's highest-scoring shot? 195k is my best.

We would have kicked your arse anyway. Once I got my fireballs working properly I was unstoppable!



I've started on the Challenge levels recently. Bloomin' 'eck some of them are annoyingly tricky. How the hell some people are clearing the entire screen is beyond me.

I was flicking through the challenges after I'd completed Adventure last night. I was pleased to see that I'd already done some of them. I think I'll leave it a while before I attempt them properly, though.

I've ploughed quite a few hours into this little bastard over the last week or so.

I have completed the adventure mode and am now working my way through Challenge mode. My god it's tough.

I can't seem to beat the 'get over 400k' levels (due to a lack of M4d skillz I suspect) and have moved onto the clear all pegs challenges.

Anyone got any good tips? I always try and start from the top pegs and that seems to help rack up the 25k needed for a free ball.

There's a bit of strategy that helps but mostly you just have to keep on trying until you get lucky one time.

Choose the right power up for the level. My default power up is the Spooky Ball, but different levels require different powers, depending both on the level itself and the placement of the green pegs.

Try and go for the purple peg, if it's in a useful position.

Learn the levels. Work out what shots allow you to get extreme slides, etc.

Aim better.

The 360 version, though, despite having the exact same levels and challenges, is much harder than any other version of the game and the lack of direct pointer aiming (or even the elongated aiming arrow of the iPod version) means it's a lot more difficult to judge shots well.

For achieving certain amount of points on a level I'd say the rabbit is the best bet then hope you either get triple points or the magic hat.

Same here. I usually go with Spooky Ball or Zen, then depending on the level, possibly the flippers or space blast.

I had a break from trying to 100% the levels (I think I'm up to the last flower level) and switched to the challenges, where I'm up to the 'clear x levels in a row' ones.

I've got about 270k I think. You can check your friends scores using the fairly rubbish leaderboards.

I've now given up on challenge mode with about 9 levels left I think.

I thought the leaderboards were pretty good and easy enough to compare scores, especially compared to Out Run's godawful method of doing it.

Finally got 100% on 7-5 (70 and sunny). The fireball helps a bit on this one - till took me a few hours though.

Want to know what happens when you 100% all the levels?

Go. To. Bed.


(Well done though!)

Crikey - well done.

I've stopped going for challenges and 100%s for now, and I'm trying to get the 20m points challenge. However, I sleepwalked thorugh about 7 levels yesterday afternoon and may have screwed that plan up.

The Challenges get a fair bit harder as you progress, taking me many more attempts now to pass each one. Still chipping away at them though, as it's still fun. For now.

Well done Devilman!

Just got into this and finding it quite nice. We got a new computer the weekend and this was already preinstalled on it. Looks a lot like Pachinko and with a bit of Pinball added at a first glance. Only about halfway through the main game so far nothing much unlocked.

Well that's all the challenges done too now. Don't think I can be arsed to go for the three multiplayer achievements though.

what are the multiplayer achievements, I think I need all 3 so surely they could be easily whored.

I salute you sir.

I used to love this game, but I'm glad I no longer play it. I do have the full version and its still installed.

- Win a four-player peg party by 100,000 points
- Win an Xbox live duel using the crab
- Win a peg party

I unlocked (by pure random luck I think) another small achievement in this earlier. I think I'm getting better at the game and I'm certainly racking up larger scores, though this might just be my imagination that I'm getting loads better, because obviously luck plays a part with a certain bounce off the wall or stuff like that.

Anyway, I'm still totally loving the game, so that's the main thing.

I went on earlier to try and get the duel one and there was absolutely nobody about to duel with.

It doesn't seem as popular as the peg party. I've got all but one of the achievements now but I don't see me getting the 'Win a 4-player peg party by 100,000' as people seem to dip in and out so chances are there wouldn't be four people at the end.

I think when I won it there were only three people left. Maybe it counts when you START with 4 people.

The iPhone version is out. £2.99. Controls seem good. Tap on screen to aim, double tap to zoom in, use an on-screen scroll wheel for fine aiming. Not sure how stuff like flippers work yet, probably an on-screen button.

It saves when you exit even if the ball is in-flight, which is pleasing.

Amusing to think people on EG were bitching about it being "£7" a week or so back. Like PopCap is that stupid.

I've not tried the game yet, but I strongly suspect Peggle's going to take up semi-permanent residence in the App Store top-50.

I will be informing the missus to get this on her iPhone tonight.

Well, my promo's now sitting in iTunes, and I'll have a play over the weekend. It'll be interesting to see what I make of the game, being the one person on the entire planet who's never played any version of Peggle.

Grr. Apps that demand a wifi connection for download when I'm nowhere near one that I can use annoy me greatly. Especially considering it doesn't even queue the request and download it when wifi becomes available.

Wow

Get your important things done first mate.

Well, they just announced a PS3/PSN version of Peggle.

Well, it's going on my phone now (assuming there's room—I'm nearly at the app limit again), and so if it's as good as people say, that might be it from now on.

We'll miss you Craig

I'm back and, er, I thought Peggle was... OK. I'll play some more before reviewing it, but it's a bit too random for my liking, and a pretty basic game that's brilliantly presented (the stupid characters, the music on completing a level, the dumb EXTREME! extras you get for, um, pinging a virtual ballbearing around).

So, I found it fun to being with, somewhat infuriating when I got stuck on a level that I had no control over winning, and prefer the somewhat similar but more controllable pinball games on iPhone (such as the conversion of Pinball Dreams from the Amiga).

You always have control over winning. It's not random, the same actions get you the same outcome every time.

I'd pretty much agree with this. I got it on the XBox, played through adventure mode, played a bit with Dimrill*, and since never really wanted to load it up. At no point did I ever find it particulary gripping**.

* - of Peggle, that is.

** - Still Peggle.

Well, pseudo-random then. When there are 50 billion pegs on screen and you need to hit one, I defy anyone but the most autistic player to figure out the exact angle and deflections required to do so. For me, it's like a complex pinball table minus the control and a lot of the skill and fun—and I've never been a huge fan of games with a massive 'luck' element. As I said to someone on Twitter, even Sneezies is less reliant on luck than Peggle.

(Note that I don't dislike the game, but I'm currently finding it hard to understand quite why so many people are raving about it to the extent they are.)

Also to reply to Dudley's point. It does appear to have quite a few random elements, unless there is some pattern to predict the placement of the different coloured pegs. So loading up the same level and playing the same shots will not get you the same result every time.

I played it loads but I'm not sure I'll be playing it again. It reminded me very much of Zookeeper, maddeningly addictive and draws you in right up until the point where you find yourself tapping away like some demented lab animal and suddenly wonder why the fuck you are still bothering.

The adventure bit is just a ridiculously long tutorial, the challenges are where its at.

Yeah, I agree with most of this. The luck/random part gets annoying on the harder levels in the Challenge mode. With some of those levels where you need to get 400,000 or whatever points, or clear all the pegs, I'll never complete because I'm just not prepared to try it again and again on the off chance.

That said, I do love Peggle and am enjoying it loads, though it won't replace Zoo Keeper in my affections.

It wouldn't be so bad if all of the "main" levels and "challenge" levels had fixed peg placement (so the orange pegs didn't move) but that it had a "random" mode where things changed every time you did it.

I don't know why there isn't a random level generator that just puts pegs and bricks around the screen.

got the iphone version yesterday (boring session in great san sebastian, but withy wifi-> peggle!)
always though the xbox version was not more than okay, and although it seems to be a nice activity on the iphone as well, i don't really am completely englossed by it

Well, that and Challenge mode not being locked until you've completed the entire Adventure mode. I'm not sure I have the patience to deal with 50+ semi-randomly generated levels to get to this mythical (to me) really good bit.

I have both the iPhone and 360 versions, and those were my first exposure to it. Like a few others here, I also find it a pleasant enough passtime, but I can't work out what people are getting so excited about.

I think that what I like about it is that it is mindless, you can dip in for just 2 minutes, and it is a quick load. Each level can take only a couple of minutes, so on the 360, it is great to have there to dip into for a few minutes while you wait for something else to come along (your friends finishing a seemingly endless L4D campaign, for example). Of course, the quick gameplay of each level means you can find yourself playing for a lot longer than anticipated.

On iPhone, these elements are not unique in the slightest, indeed most games are designed for a 3 minute thrash, so it won't stand out compared to anything else available - however it is the only game I've stumbled upon from XBLA that offers this.

It's interesting people making the comparison with Zoo Keeper. There is a certain similarity in the uncontrollable random elements to Zoo Keeper's hateful Quest mode. However, the game it's reminding me of most is Puzzle Quest—Peggle is oddly compelling and I do want to stick with it for a while (similarly, just in case), but I'm really not finding it all that much fun. And although the nutcase presentation (primarily the music and characters) had me chuckling, the over-the-top blast of Ode to Joy isn't quite so funny the tenth time round.

As with other PopCap iPhone games, production values can't be faulted, but I doubt it'll take up permanent residence on my iPhone, unlike Bejeweled.

Funnily enough, the Ode to Joy thing (plus daft characters etc) is one of the main attractions to me. I've often spent ages trying to beat a certain level, and have been at the point of giving up, but then a lucky bounce or two gets me the necessary points, and the Ode to Joy kicks in and all the fireworks start... and I end up forgiving it.

My iPhone 2G suffers from tremendous slowdown when playing Peggle. I haven't tried it on my 3G but I suspect it'll have the same problem.

It's almost excruciating when it zooms in and I hit the last peg, it takes about a minute for the ball to bounce around because of the FPS drop.