Of all the videogames in my top 50, Peggle is the easiest to share. It's always a joy no matter who i play with, i simply can not go wrong with challenging someone to play peggle. It's so approachable that pretty much anyone can enjoy it yet still interesting enough for me to spend countless hours dueling my dad.

Somehow this is simultaneously an incredibly low skill and incredibly high skill game. I don't think I've played any other game that balances these two dynamics the way peggle does {Sidenote: this is one of the only games where I enjoy trash talking and playful banter because of the way you're shots are both skill dependent and out of your control}. Sometimes you're making difficult and precise shots, sometimes you're aiming and praying. Sometimes you're a genius who planned a clever trick shot. Sometimes you accidentally stumble your way into an epic unbelievable shot.

Both players develop an incredible investment in watching each shot unfold, it's both a fun spectacle and source of rollercoaster emotions. Peggle is all too happy to serve you both disappointment and satisfaction, each match feels like a distinct blend of experiences. The physics is precisely tuned to make watching the ball a blast. Both the audio and visual design work together to smuggle dopamine across the screen and into your skull.

Speaking of Presentation, wow it's charming. I especially adore the stage backgrounds , I'd honestly love to get framed prints of some of them. The vibes of everything in this game are just off the charts. No wonder so many people are able to form such a strong nostalgia for this game, it has such a distinct and wonderful character.

I like all the characters. When I play I always choose a random one, this gives some nice diversity to playing the game. Their abilities are impactful and interesting. Shoutout to the flippers and electroshock.

The stages are wonderfully designed. There's so many cute and interesting layouts. I love how they range from incredible combos that the level designers practically give you for free to devilish and tricky obstacles to work around.


The duel mode is the vastly superior way to play, so much so that to me it's the entire game. I wonder if the developers truly understand how much of a masterpiece the duel mode is. In comparison the singleplayer content is all only ok. {It's a shame you have to do each stage in the campaign to unlock them in multiplayer}. If you haven't played peggle against someone else, you haven't played the real game. It is much more interesting to pursue score than clearing orange pegs. The scoring system is excellent, it especially shines with the wonderful strategy layer of sharing a board with your opponent.

This feels like one of those games you'd find pre-installed on a system... but if you play Peggle it's quite easy to see how special it is