Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
When I was a kid I was obsessed with the uncontrolled falling of ball-like things. Plinko? Check. Pinball? Check. Pachinko? Check. Okay, maybe I didn’t need to say ‘ball-like’ but the chips in Plinko weren’t balls. And don’t get me started on how I knew about Pachinko living in America as a child. Okay, get me started. My mom owned a Pachinko machine and I have no idea where she got it. Was she part of some sort of underground Japanese Yakuza based in Parma, OH? I’ll have to ask her. It’s not important enough to ask now so you’ll probably never know if she was in a Japanese gang.*
Somewhere along the line, I stopped caring about such things. I don’t know if it was the Atari we had or the He-Man figures I was temporarily allowed to own and play with. Maybe you can blame it on the hardening of my heart and the decimation of my emotions and sensitivity (tell that to my iTunes playing Nick Drake right now). Who cares? That’s all changed! The PC game Peggle, developed by PopCap Games, has renewed my love of falling balls.**
In Peggle, you are tasked with the elimination of orange pegs from a playing field mostly covered with blue pegs. There are a number of characters (all animals) who, for some reason or another, HATE orange pegs. To accomplish this, you are given a cannon that can shoot shiny balls that will eliminate the pegs (both blue and orange) upon touching them. When one of the balls hits a peg, the physics of the game will bounce the ball around the field much like a pachinko ball. The catch is, you are only given a certain amount of balls with which to accomplish your task. You can get extra balls by getting a certain amount of points with one ball or by catching your ball in a bucket that swings back and forth at the bottom of the playing field. Each character that you play with gives you a special power that can be activated by eliminating the scarce green pegs that are scattered around each level. The powers include a bigger bucket, an arrow that shows you where your ball will bounce to when you shoot it, multi-balls, and so on. It’s a much more advanced version of pachinko that you just couldn’t possibly have without a talking animal at your side.
There’s something about this game that satisfies my heart’s hunger. When the ball shoots out of the cannon and it bounce around the field like some bouncy ball in a closet it entertains me to no end. When the points build up with every bounce and that extra ball sound rings I feel like I’ve just conquered Europe and put my hand in my military vest. When the ball accidentally falls into the bucket and I get it back I thrust my arm into the air, usually pulling the mouse from the USB port. It satisfies on every level and not many casual games do that for me. Its hypnotic gameplay is only further expanded with a soundtrack that includes a reworking of the sample used for A Tribe Called Quest’s "Electric Relaxation."
ATCQ and falling balls? Can it get any better? Yes. I forgot to mention a swedish unicorn named Bjorn. It just got better.
*unless a Yakuza video game based on my mother’s life comes out and I care enough to review it
**HAHA BALLS FALLING – GET IT?
Filed under: game
