Peggle Complete

The launch of the Steam game download service for Mac reminded us of a game that swallowed up far too many of our days. Pachinko-inspired game Peggle from PopCap Games is available in various versions for Mac and iPhone. Now you can use Steam to download Peggle Complete, a pack containing Peggle Deluxe and its follow-up, Peggle Nights.

For $15 you’ll get a staggering 115 levels of Peggle gameplay. And when you’ve finished, you can go back to the start and try to unlock all the game’s various achievements.

If you’re unfamiliar with Peggle, here’s how it works. each level is full of blue and orange pegs. The blue pegs are obstacles, the orange pegs score points. You clear both with the aid of a gun that fires a virtual ball bearing, picking up bonus power-ups along the way. You have a limited amount of ammo, so to beat the game takes skill as well as luck. For old school game fans, it’s part Breakout, part pinball—and completely addictive.

There are two distinct modes of play. In Adventure mode, you work your way through the levels one by one, under the guidance of a different Peggle Master every five levels. Or, you can choose to play in Challenge mode, with stricter rules on how you must clear all the orange pegs. You can even play with a friend in Duel mode.

Macworld's buying advice

The gaming community rather dismissively refers to games like Peggle as casual. Just remember: when you’re still up at 3 in the morning, trying to clear that last peg, you’ll be in good company—Peggle has over 50 million players worldwide.