PC Game Review: Peggle Nights

It’s a good thing I keep an open mind when it comes to playing and reviewing games, or else I might’ve never met Peggle. How appropriate that its follow gets the name Peggle Nights. The original kept hubby and me up many nights past our bedtime. I’m not a big fan of arcade play mainly because I don’t like the pressure of move, move, move!

A little sidebar here. While growing up, my parents had a classic pachinko machine (classic uses a lever to make the ball pop not electronics like today’s pachinko machines). While living in Washington, DC, hubby and I took a weekend trip to Atlantic City in January of 1993. We watched the Dallas Cowboys whip the San Francisco 49ers then went out on the boardwalk.

There, we discovered a store selling pachinkos! I had always wanted another one because my parents’ pachinko machine died years before and never worked well. Only, these were electronic and we bought one. Still have it, but poor thing sits in a corner drowning in dust. You see, when we moved back to Texas, we had an 18-month old followed by two more kids. No parent wants pachinko marbles all over the house or G-d forbid, a kid swallow one.

We should sharpen up the machine again now that the baby is five. It needs a stand or cabinet rather than sit on the floor. So where am I going with this story? Peggle is pachinko with brighter colors, cooler music, and rockin’ slow motion. Besides, the background changes every time. Pachinko only has one background and so many special effects.

Peggle Nights brings all new scenes with the same masters. Fans won’t see any new features or upgrades, but more like a big change of scenery. Adventure mode returns with 60 levels that take more work to beat. Each of the 11 masters tells you its dream — thus, “night”, lends you its bonus power, and sticks with you for five levels. The final five levels let you select the master you want to use.

Pumpkin dreams of being a painter, so the background reflects his painting. One of the funnier backgrounds — clich??, but funny — shows the famous The Scream painting with the pumpkin’s face replacing the screamer’s face.

All the masters return with their famous powers that help us whenever we hit a green peg. The lobster’s claws come out working like flippers in a pinball machine, rabbit’s magic hat helps hit more pegs, and King Tut’s pyramid expands the bucket to improve your chances of catching the ball.

The goal for every level is to clear all the orange pegs. Blue pegs dominate the screen to act as barriers, green turns on the power up, and purple triples the score. Though 60 levels sounds like a lot for most games, it still doesn’t take me more than a day to complete adventure mode.

New in Peggle Nights is the introduction of Ace Score. Every level has an ace score where you can win a red ribbon whenever you beat the score. So after you finish adventure mode, you can replay any in level Quick Play mode so you can win every Ace ribbon. Clear all the pegs for a bonus blue ribbon.

Duel mode lets you compete with other players or against the computer. Challenge mode contains challenging peggle games where may have fewer balls.

Another wonderful feature is colorblind mode, which makes the graphics more efficient to those with colorblindness.

Perfect your shots to win points and recognition for style shots. The Super Long Shot, worth 5000 points (10,000 in Duel mode), requires hitting a non-blue peg, traveling two-thirds the width of the screen to hit another non-blue peg. Off the Wall, valued at 25,000 points, involves bouncing the ball of the wall and traveling one-fifths the width of the screen to hit a non-blue peg.

Masters also have specific style shots. The lobster awards Flipper Maniac and 25,000 points whenever bouncing the ball off a flipper and hitting at least one peg four times. Zap 12 one more pegs with Electrobolt for a Shock It to Me reward and 25,000 points.

I put off this review for as long as I could. After all, it was my excuse for playing Peggle Nights instead of handing it over to hubby so he could play. Now, I’ll have to share. It’s still a delight to hear Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and watch the fireworks when I win. It certainly lessens the pain I’ve been in for over a week with sciatica. Count on Peggle Nights to chase away the blues or ease the pain and even make you smile.

Game du Jour: Week of September 22

The following games will be discounted next week on Game du Jour, the ‘one-deal-a-day’ website dedicated to indie and casual games:

Mon. September 22nd: 40% off on Hawaiian Explorer: Lost Island

Tue. September 23rd: 60% off on Call for Heroes: Pompolic Wars

Wed. September 24th: 42% off on The Secret of Margrave Manor

Thu. September 25th: 52% off on Mahjong World

Fri. September 26th: 52% off on Great Wall of Words

Sat. September 27th: 52% off on Solitaire Cruise

Sun. September 28th: 50% off on Pearl Diversion

PC Game Review: 4 Elements

An enchanting experience awaits match three fans in 4 Elements. The game’s stunning visuals, airy music, and twist on match three create a beautiful package. The story begins with the corruption of the magic of the four elements that kept a kingdom running for centuries.

You need to unlock the four ancient books of magic and collect 16 cards to restore the kingdom. The four books include Earth, fire, air, and water with each containing four cards. Before making matches, players need to unlock one book beginning with Earth. Here, players find all the pieces of objects needed to find the key to unlock the book.

The objects interact with the scene to help locate more missing pieces and eventually the key. The matching game comes in after unlocking the book. Earth is the first book you must restore by clearing tiles to create a path for the magic energy to flow through until it reaches the altar.

In Earth, the clearing the brown tiles lets the green energy make its way to the altar to bring a tree to life. The scenes and tiles match the books’ themes. So the book of fire has red liquid and ends with a flame while water’s energy is blue and the revived altar looks like a waterfall.

It takes four rounds of matching to find all the missing for a card. Once restored, players need to seek differences between the two scenes of the card to complete restore it. A fairy guides you throughout 4 Elements and offers hints in the key searching and card comparison mini-games when needed.

Unlike standard match three games, you don’t work to clear all the tiles in the scene. Instead, you work to make a path to help the energy flow from one end to the altar. The scene moves as you progress on the path and you can’t go backward. In making longer matches, the tiles at the end of the match explode affecting tiles around it. The number of tiles depends on the length of the match. So pay attention in case you need a little help from the explosion by creating the match in the right direction.

Four bonuses show up whenever you make enough matches of the bonus’ corresponding color. The shovel — which clears one tile — fills up based on green tile matches. Other bonuses consist of a bomb for clearing a small area, swap for trading two pieces, and rearrange for moving all the tiles in hopes of getting better matches.

4 Elements gives you no reason to play the game again once you play all 64 levels. Games don’t always need to have a second mode, but this one misses an opportunity for not having a second mode consisting of only the matching game considering its unique twist. Chuzzle and Bejeweled don’t have stories, yet their endless mode compel people to play them repeatedly.

It’s not often we see an original game come along especially in a popular genre. 4 Elements not only brings a fresh approach to match threes, but also comes with amazing production values. Just go download it from your favorite site. One hour of play is worth it.

Download 4 Elements from your favorite site:

• Big Fish Games



• Playfirst



• Reflexive