Can I have a turn?

“Daddy, can I have a turn now?” said the young girl waiting patiently on her father’s knee whilst he was sitting in his all too familiar position at the computer desk.

He had recently picked up the long-awaited Orange Box and with half an hour to go before dinner had decided to try out the casual game which came along with the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2. But that was an hour ago and he was still working on the intricacies of the game.

“Did you finish your dinner?”
“Yes, and Mummy said yours is getting cold”
“Oh, alright then, it’s all yours” I said, my stomach beginning to grumble. And with that I headed off top the dinner table and let my daughter take over from where I left off.

Orange Box

If you were one of the vast number of gamers to have picked up the Orange Box on pre-order you would have received a version of a surprisingly addictive casual game. No, I’m not talking about Portal - that was addictive nonetheless, but I’m talking about the game from PopCap, known as Peggle Extreme. Of course, unless you had a laptop or netbook, you would not have been able to play Peggle whenever you wanted. All that has changed though, with Peggle Dual Shot available on the DS.

For those of you unfamiliar with the game, Peggle is not dissimilar to pinball. You start your game by firing your ball into the game board made up of a number of coloured (mainly blue) pegs, hence the Peggle title. The goal in the game is to clear the game board of all the orange pegs. The gamer has 10 balls with which to bounce around and clear the board of all the orange pegs (25 in Adventure mode). Along the way there are a number of power-ups that become available in the form of green pegs. Each group of five levels (each with a story for a different game character) has a different power-up such as multi-ball, flippers (which makes the game even more like pinball) and even a power-up that improves the trajectory of the shot. There are also pink pegs, which act as a score multiplier. Hitting five pink pegs during a level will also activate a Bonus Underground mini-game (which is even more like pinball) that was not present in the PC version.

Bouncing around

As mentioned, the gamer has 10 balls with which to clear the board of orange pegs. A bucket that moves across the bottom of the screen can also assist the gamer. Whenever the ball falls into the bucket on its descent, the gamer will gain a free ball. Controlling the game is extremely simple. Aim the shooter (positioned at the top of the screen) anywhere you please with the stylus and then launch the ball into the playing field. This is the one issue I have with the game. At times you could be aiming with the stylus and then go to press the launch button, and the direction of the ball-shooter could move fractionally, putting your shot off target. This can be especially annoying when on the last couple of balls.