Peggle Blast Review

Take the monetization format of Candy Crush Saga and add the wonderfully addictive Peggle, and what do you get? Peggle Blast – a suitably enjoyable yet similarly cynical version of everyone's favorite adaptation of Pachinko and Bagatelle.

First things first: Peggle Blast plays just as well as any other Peggle game. It'll still occasionally feel a touch random, but it's satisfying for the most part. Dragging a finger around the screen manipulates where the ball goes, with holding it down will magnify the area. Lining things up perfectly to perform a loop-the-loop in order to take out loads of tiles at once is particularly satisfying. And, of course, Ode to Joy is still in there for when you succeed at a level.

Where Peggle Blast falters is in the elements that will provide it (and EA) with money. It uses a similar structure to Candy Crush Saga and so many other freemium games, with you working your way through individual levels. Some levels offer slightly different objectives, such as one set that involves taking out eggs rather than focusing on the orange tiles. There are boss battles too, which mix things up well enough.

Complete a certain number of levels and you have to recruit friends to speed up the process of unlocking more, or you can skip ahead for a price. Similarly, run out of lives and you have to wait it out for a refresh or pay extra. You can pay extra for more balls and other power-ups, too. You can choose to avoid much of this, but you'll often feel like the game is more interested in gleaning money than giving you a great experience.

You might be desperate for a new Peggle fix, but odds are you'd be more comfortable sticking to boosting your high scores in earlier versions. At least then you won’t have to worry about pestering your Facebook friends for assistance.