Peggle Impressions: Digital Crack Rock

What is Peggle? Part puzzle game, part Real Time Strategy game, part Pinball, part Pachinko, 100% addictive and 1000x more fun than most other "simplistic" games it competes against, Peggle is in fact the Piece de Resistance of the casual gaming movement outside of the Nintendo Wii. The company who makes it calls themselves PopCap Games, but really they should call themselves CrackRock Games, as the title would be much more apt. Once you try the FREE DEMO ("here, try some of this kid"), theres no turning back. It doesnt matter if you are a suburban housewife who plays games while watching Oprah, or a hardcore Halo junkie that plays on Xbox Live 12 hours a day, this game will get its hooks into you and not let go without a feverish fight.

The graphics are primitive at best (you cant even adjust the resolution in the PC version) and the physics are wonky. The menus and backgrounds are all Unicorns and Rainbows and happy little Gnomes and Furry Animals. You shoot the balls at the orange bricks until they are all gone. Sometimes you get a powerup. Its all extremely simple and disgustingly cute, and yet utterly compelling and disturbingly addictive all at the same time. What it comes down to is that Peggle is a masterpiece of game design. Its a game you can literally play for 5 seconds at a time and still enjoy. How is that possible? It just shouldnt be. But it is.