Peggle 2 is like Peggle. That’s great — and also a significant problem.
Peggle 2 (Xbox One): On the plus side
On the surface, Peggle and its sequel, the Xbox One exclusive Peggle 2, are about as simple as videogames can possibly get. There’s a field of pegs, and you control a cannon firing marbles at them. Hitting pegs causes them to vanish, and you win by hitting all the orange pegs on the screen before you run out of balls. There are powerups, there are score multipliers and just a few wacky items per screen to keep things flowing along.
That’s a description that fits original Peggle, and it fits Peggle 2 as well. It’s relaxed, casual gaming that has difficulty tweaked just precisely enough to be infuriatingly addictive. To this day, I can’t hear “Ode To Joy” without thinking that somebody’s just cleared a Peggle board.
The real genius of Peggle remains in the way that the game is balanced. Plenty of folk put that down to spot-on physics, but they’re sadly wrong, or at the very least slightly deluded, because while Peggle’s physics are decent, they’re still not above reproach. That appears to be by design, however, as it encourages you to play even when you’re not doing well. All you need is one lucky bounce — and those seem to happen a whole lot. It means that even unskilled players can feel they’re doing well, which keeps them playing.
There are new masters with interesting powers to learn, which take a little — but not a lot — of learning. Again, that’s Peggle 2 playing to its strengths, offering a game that’s very easy to both explain and play.
Being an Xbox One title, the visuals are sharp and very well realised, if a little bit on the garish side. There are some neat in-jokes in the animation and script, and enough randomly-generated challenge — because while peg placement is set for each board, peg colour isn’t — to keep you going for months — just like the original.
Peggle 2 (Xbox One): On the minus side
The similarity to the original is a strength, because the original game is still very good indeed, but at the same time it’s not exactly a selling argument for the sequel itself. If you want a Peggle fix and you’ve already got Peggle in its many and varied forms, this is ultimately just more of the same. Great if your only machine happened to be an Xbox One, but not compelling on the grounds of its own originality.
Peggle 2 touts the fact that the peg colour placement is random as “Awesome game design!”, but I beg to differ. It does give Peggle 2 variety, but it also makes certain challenges much harder or easier on a random basis, because some patterns and clumps of orange/blue/purple pegs will make hitting certain scores or objective much easier. Because it’s random, though, you can’t control that, so you’re left with just blind luck as to whether a pattern will “work” or not if you’re chasing the harder objectives.
My biggest fear with Peggle 2 is that PopCap would do with it what they did with Plants Vs Zombies 2. Specifically, that they’d engineer it around expensive IAP. That hasn’t happened… yet.
There is, however, a little shop. There’s always a little shop, as a wise man once said.
The shop isn’t functional yet, which is interesting, but also still a little worrying. Please don’t break Peggle 2, PopCap. Just… please don’t.
It’s a minor gripe, but Peggle 2 subverts my expectations with regards to Ode To Joy playing at the end of each round, with each successive Peggle Master having his, her or its own classical tune instead. I won’t spoil them, but it still feels slightly jarring not to have Ode To Joy there. Perhaps that’s just me.
Peggle 2 (Xbox One): Pricing
Peggle 2 is (for now) an Xbox One exclusive download-only title that’ll set you back $15.95.
Peggle 2 (Xbox One): Fat Duck Verdict
Peggle remains a fantastic game, and Peggle 2 is just Peggle with a fancy coat of paint. As such, it too has to be ranked as fantastic, but with the caveat that it is indeed, just more Peggle, albeit Peggle with farting, banana obsessed goats. The Xbox One isn’t exactly rich with puzzle games (or indeed lots of games) right now, so from that perspective it’s quite welcome.