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 — cliché, 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.