Peggle 2 Stream Summary - 19/03/24

 

So last Tuesday we delved a second time into the realm of balls and pins that is Peggle 2. In my first stream I completed all the challenges laid out for me by the first three Masters and as such earned a nice bronze medal, this time though I was determined to upgrade that to a silver medal by finishing the challenges for the last three Masters contained in the main game... or not. I'll elaborate on that later in the article. But for now I was off to Gnorman's Gneighborhood.

Now as you might have guessed by the poorly disguised name, Gnorman is a Gnome, but not just any old Gnome. Gnorman got sick of being so small compared to everyone else so he essentially built himself a mech that opens up in a way not dissimilar to that one scene in Men in Black with the dying alien.

Gnorman reveals himself when a stage is completed

Gnorman's levels were all machine based which I guess makes sense given the whole mech persona, but equally confusing as Gnomes aren't really known for being mechanically minded outside of Baldur's Gate 2 (though I guess they are typically inventors), and his magic ability was also suitably machine based being named Uber Volt. Honestly this was one of my favourite magic abilities in the game as it strikes the nearest two untouched pegs to each peg your ball actually hits, but obviously only within a certain radius because otherwise that would be insane.

Look at that glorious lightning!

Playing Gnorman's levels were, fittingly, a bit like working out the inner mechanisms of a machine as new obstacles and barriers appeared as each stage was completed such as these strange, orange fuse looking things that go back and forth, influencing the direction and path your ball takes.

The new obstacles added some variety to levels.

Once I was done with Gnorman's levels it was time to move on to the next Master, a strange ghostly skeleton girl called Luna, and as you've probably guessed her levels are more Halloween based and spooky. The layout of these stages however were designed in a way that hitting those hard to reach reds was much trickier than for previous Masters and as such it was more difficult to progress because of that.

Now how the heck do I get inside that circle?

Of course some of the earlier levels were also pretty darn tricky to complete so an escalation in difficulty was not unforeseen. What was unforeseen was Luna's double-edged magical ability, Nightshade, that was situationally useful but more often frustrating as it allows your ball to move through and break non-special pegs (ie blue pegs) which, admittedly it's great for hitting those pesky red pegs that are impossible to reach otherwise (such as those in the bottom rows and the lower circle in the picture above) but an absolute nuisance when the majority of your playstyle is pinging your ball off other pegs pinball style. Worse still, the game designers obviously knew this as Luna's mandatory trial was just a normal type of stage where I had to hit a high score playing exclusively with Nightshade on, something I had not encountered with any other Master before Luna and a challenge I just about completed by the skin of my teeth.

Nightshade is useful and a pest in equal measures

Whilst Luna's levels were your typical Peggle affair with a mishmash of blocks and pegs placed in such a way that there's obviously a trick to completing them but I'm too slow to understand or see as I  just blindly shoot off balls like they're going out of business, there was one level that stuck out like a sore thumb that I genuinely enjoyed playing. It was shaped like a spider's web and came complete with its own spider and some wrapped up bugs dotted strategically around the stage that served as obstacles to either hinder my progress or, in my case, used to ping balls off of when Nightshade inevitably gets activated.

Probably my favourite level design, honestly

So after much frustration with the Nightshade ability and increasingly more difficuly level designs, I finally made it through Luna's levels and I was ready to take on the sixth and final Master... only instead I was confronted with the screen below...

Eh? What do you mean congratulations??

So it turns out my words were a sham, there were only five base game Masters the whole time! But wait, I definitely saw six options that were silhouetted so what the bally 'ell is going on here?

Well as it turns out the sixth "Master" is a selection of special celestial themed stages, and this time I got to pick a Master I was already familiar with to use on a level by level basis. Fortunately my choice was not locked in after I made my selection so if I failed a stage I could try again with a different Master. This added a whole new level of tactical play as not only were these stages tough but certain magical abilities worked better for some stages than others... heck, I even found Luna of all the Masters to be particularly adept in completing one specific stage, though sadly I neglected to get any pictures of me playing it. Instead of boring you all with the nitty gritty I'll just insert some screenshots I actually took of me playing this collection without context as there's really not much to say.

After a third hour of sheer determination to get my beloved virtual silver medal I made it through and conquered the sixth and final group of stages, that made it sixty stages completed in total - that's a lot of pegs! And no, not once during this second stream did I get rid of all the pegs in a level so that only happened the once in my last stream.

Anyways that was it for this week's stream, on Wednesday I will be playing for the gold so it's be trial time! That's another 54/55 challenges to complete... hopefully I will not rage quit during the stream! But until then I shall leave you with a screen capture of the credits...

For someone who made a mech to make himself bigger, Gnorman's still tiny

Votes for the next Random Sel-X game are currently open, and the deadline for the next round of votes will be after I am finished with Peggle 2 at a time and date to be determined later. Leave a comment on the linked post to have your say in which game I play next!

- D J Driver