POSTED 1/11/14


PEGGLE 2

Popcap/EA

Hello. My name is Amy, and I’m a Pegglemaholic.

For several years I bounced balls in lieu of accomplishing anything particularly constructive. Now, following years of rehab, the little that remains of Popcap under EA’s gobble-gobble umbrella-ella-ella have made another Peggle. Fucking enablers!

Still, other than big screen shininess and defaulting to the buy-more-stuff shop upon first loading, you’d be hard-pressed to notice much different initially. Bricks and pegs come, balls are fired some, balls boing, pegs ploing, buckets swoop and buckets scoop. Think Pachinko, just with a psychedelic colour palette and such mascots as a Scandinavian unicorn, a moustache-obsessed goth kid and a yeti with a pixelated bum. Oh, and a kind of classical music’s greatest hits thing going on, as each character has a different fugue upon level completion.

While our old unicornical friend Bjorn returns, the other masters are new. A whole four of them. They bring new special moves, but fans will not only miss the original characters and their particular skills, but also that they numbered more than a pissy five. There may be a similar amount of levels, plus challenges, but that’s not the point. Being an EA product, naturally you can buy more characters, for around $3 each. Gouge away...

At least multiplayer support’s OK. For those who can’t convince anybody that visiting their abode and partaking of their ever-so-comfy couch is a desirable thing there’s online which, of course in a markedly convoluted way, implies that there's local co-op too. But high score tables? Erm, nope.

As always in the Peggleverse, Peggle 2 isn’t just about eradicating orangeness. Style counts, and if you’ve got it you’ll score big time. If only EA had retained the style (and brilliance, and casual game space nous) of Peggle’s creators this sequel may have had more zing. A big ask when you go and fire most of them...

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