Game Quicky: Peggle (PC) ~ Shoot Those Pegs

 

Official website

It’s so disappointing that the sequel to this game only released on XBOX ONE. But wait, I’m getting way ahead of myself. I should take a look at this game first… PopCap, the creators of Bejeweled and Plants VS Zombies, created Peggle in 2007. It has been ported to various systems. Even to systems I have never heard about. But hey, that’s beside the point. It’s time to take a look at Peggle, a game I played on both the PC and the DS. But in this article, I’m going to take a look at the PC version. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and/or the game in the comment section down below. 

The good

Peggle is a pretty simple game. You have a board with different colored bricks, called pegs in this game. The goal is that you hit every orange peg with a limited amount of balls. You get 10 balls for each level, but by scoring a lot of points or landing in the bucket at the bottom of the screen you earn an extra shot.

The game is simple and easy to understand. This makes it quite addictive in my opinion. It’s a fun game to play for a little while and sometimes you can keep playing this game for hours.

You can also record each shot you make, to show off to your friends afterwards. But this isn’t implemented perfectly.

The visuals and presentation are pretty nice. I loved how each character had a theme and the levels stuck with it. The level design felt natural. There were no levels that felt forced to fit a certain theme.

After you have beaten all the levels, an additional challenge mode unlocks. Depending on how your board spawns, these can be easy or really hard.

The two player mode is also really nice. You can take turns to shoot, but here is the catch… You play on the same board. So, you need to plan your shoots well. Since if you make an opening for your opponent… Well, then you can kiss your points goodbye.

The difficulty of this game is really well done. The first levels of a character are rather easy to get you used to their style and power-up… But their final levels really put your skills to the test.

The bad

While the gameplay is really fun… It can be rather frustrating. The placing of the orange pegs is random each and every time. So this means that it sometimes comes down to luck.

I remember that I had to repeat one level 15 times before I could beat it. And when I played the level a second time a few years later, I was able to beat it on the first try.

The current Steam version offers no widescreen support. This can ruin some parts of the visuals on wide screen monitors.

Earlier, I talked about the recording of your shots. Well, the big issue here is that you can’t easily share them. You have to watch them in-game. I haven’t found another real easy way to upload them to for example YouTube or any other platform.

Also, since this game is on Steam, why can’t you challenge your Steam friends in the two player mode? Because it’s local play only.

The Steam port has so much potential but in the end, it’s nothing more than a port of the original version.

And honestly, I feel like there is nothing more wrong with this game. The biggest issue I have with this game is that due to the randomness, you can get stuck on one level for far too long.

If you are reading this PopCap, remake this game for Steam. Tweak and polish this game up and give this a release. Since this one of your best games you ever made!

Final thoughts

So, this game is really fun to play for a short burst. But since this game is almost 10 years old now… It’s missing some polish.

I really recommend this game to every gamer who loves high scores and/or a fun casual game.

If this game was a little bit less random, it would be perfect!

So, if I would give this game a score, it would look like this:

8/10.

So,  it’s time to wrap up this article. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to welcome you in another article on my blog but until then; have a great rest of your day and game on~!

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Game Quicky: Bookworm Adventures (PC) ~ Battle… with words!

Official site – Steam page

Today, it’s time to look at another casual game from PopCap. In the past, I used this game to learn new English words. So yeah. It’s a very nostalgic game for me. In any case, it’s time to take a quick look at it. For the people who are new to my blog and don’t know what this series is, well… In this series, I take a look at a game where I can’t write a full review on. In that case, I write a short article about it with the positives and negatives and my conclusion. So, yeah. It’s time to take a look at this game. And as usual, feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this article and/or the game in the comment section down below. 

Positives

While the story is really basic, it does work. The fact that there is a story in this game is a positive in itself. It’s even better that it doesn’t take itself seriously.

The humor in this game from the menu options and the explanation of certain things gives this game an enjoyable charm.

This game works with alt+tab, it’s slow to switch, but it doesn’t crash like a few other casual games I played.

The gameplay is where this game shines the most. You have a 4×4 square filled with letters. With those letters, you have to make a word. Depending on the length and the letters used… You harm your opponent. Your opponent doesn’t use the letters and attacks. The special attacks some enemies can use are interesting and mix up the gameplay.

You can get stunned (loose a turn), letters can get cracked (do less damage), you can get poisoned (slowly lose health) among a few other things.

When you defeat a boss, you get a treasure that gives you certain buffs. But you can only take three in each level.

There are some different mini-games and a different game mode, but I won’t spoil that one.

Also, this game can be rather difficult and isn’t that short. These are two big positives for this game.

When you mouse over certain things, like your health bar or the minimap, you can be useful information. This doesn’t clutter the screen and makes for a very nice looking game.

Negatives

This game isn’t widescreen. So, on modern monitors, this game will have black edges. It’s pretty bad on my 24- inch screen. While this doesn’t bother everybody, it’s distracting for me.

Something that might be the direct result of that is, that some textures don’t look good on widescreen monitors.

This game would be a lot better if there was a sort of dictionary in-game. Since I’m not a native English speaker, I know for a fact that I look over so many words.

Some enemies sometimes spam their stunning attacks making you loose turn after turn. This frustrated me many times.

Conclusion

This game is a very polished game. If PopCap releases a patch to make this game look better on bigger screens and add a dictionary, I would consider this game as a perfect casual adventure game.

While the spamming of special attacks is a negative thing, I don’t think they should remove it. Since it adds to the challenge of this game. That would make the game even better.

I have almost beaten this game, so I’m looking forward to playing the sequel. I’m quite curious how it holds up to the original.

Score: 90/100

In any case, I think I said everything that I wanted to say about this game. Give this game a chance, since it’s very nicely made. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to meet you in another article, but until then… a happy Easter and until the next time! Have a great rest of your day and game on!

Game Quicky: Feeding Frenzy 2 (PC) ~ Shipwreck Showdown

Steam page

This week, I was sick, so I didn’t have time to fully prepare a new article. But since I didn’t want to skip this week, I decided to take a look at a casual game called Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown. Since this game isn’t that “big”, this is going to be a game quicky. So, I hope you enjoy and feel free to leave a comment with your opinion on this game and/or the content of this article in the comment section.

Gameplay

In this game, the goal is quite simple. You start out as a small fish and you have to grow. You can only eat fish that is smaller than you.

When you eat enough fish, you grow to your next form. Then you can eat bigger fish. When you have grown three times, you can go to the next level.

But be warned, while you are looking for other fish, you are being hunted as well by bigger fish. That can eat you.

The faster you eat smaller fish, the bigger combo you make and the bigger score you get at the end.

Positives

The game has no tutorial. This game might explain itself but that’s not the positive here. The game learns the mechanics to you through playing.

Visually, this game still holds up. This game was released 10 years ago. (Funny enough, on my birthday. The 7th of February 2006). This game is still nice and colorful to look at.

You won’t need a strong PC to play this game. This is a cheap (10€ at the time of writing) game that can provide some fun when you are bored.

This game gets challenging, in the later stages. The early stages are easy enough to get used to the mechanics but the later stages won’t be that easy.

There is a reset all scores button in the high scores menu. While this might look like a small and unimportant thing… I think it’s very nice to have this.

Negatives

One of the negatives is that I can’t ALT+TAB out of the game. I had to restart the game because it didn’t show me anything after the ALT+TAB. This is something that should be fixed since it made writing this article such a pain.

A small help file would be kinda nice. Since techniques like dashing and tail biting or when you earn an extra life… Well, it’s not always that clear.

This game isn’t for long time play. Since it’s very repetitive. There is some variation with the different fish you can play, but it’s always the same thing.

After a while, I actually muted the music. In my honest opinion, the music was kind of bland.

Conclusion

This is the sort of game I play when I have nothing to do or don’t feel like playing big triple A games. Games that I play when I have some time to kill.

PopCap, the publishers of this game, made some amazing games and this is one of them. If I had to give this game a score, I would give it: 7/10.

The big thing that is keeping this game back is the repetitiveness of this game. The other things are things you can fix with a sequel and/or a patch.

In any case, thanks for reading this short article about Feeding Frenzy 2. I hope you enjoyed it and I hope to welcome you at another article in the future! But until then, have a great rest of your day.