Rock, Paper, Shotgun

“Write about Peggle Nights,” the Mighty Sentient RPS Computer told me. “But there’s no information about it whatsoever,” I meekly protested. There was a brief whirring. “WRITE ABOUT IT OR I WILL RE-APPLY THE NODES.”

Peggle Nights, eh? How exciting is that?! It’s Peggle, but at night!

Oh please help.

All that’s known is the name, thanks to a mention in the Christmas ish of PC Gamer US. Described as being… Hey, wait a second! I never noticed that insult from Kieron before. Man! Yeah well Kieron, you… you smell of wee wee. And your mum cuts your hair. YOUR PUBIC HAIR.

Simon GameSetWatch speculated that the name might infer a similarity to that greatest of television spin-offs, Baywatch Nights. But that’s only one of many possibilities…

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The running joke was crawling towards the finishing line. It knew it could make it. Somehow, it had to make it. It inched up to the RPS-approved Fairtrade Advent Calendar, and tore open the door to reveal…

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I’m having a bit of a moment. Portable gaming has just been sorted, made a done deal. There is no need for anything else.

Peggle has been released for iPod. Peggle! PEGGLE!
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While Englishman in New York San Fran Simon had mentioned it online before us, we got a copy of the relevant bits of PC Gamer US for a looksie. And lo! Pop Cap are really calling Peggle’s sequel Peggle Nights, PC Gamer US really did (righteously!) include it in their Top 8 games for 2008 and it really does offer us 65 new levels, a new character with power-up AND a game called Peggle Nights. Also, they’re working on something else…

We snagged evidence of an as-yet-unnamed survival-horror game that puts gamers against everybody’s favourite moaning, groaning unpleasant smelling adversary: the undead. That’s right – survival horror from the same folks that game us a strapping unicorn named Bjorn in peggle.

Speak for yourselves, PCGUS. Our favourite moaning, groaning unpleasant smelling adversary is John Walker. Thanks Gametrailers Carl Kwoh for the mag, wherein you can find more details and – gasp! – a screen.

[Reposting this now, as the game was knocked offline on the day I wrote about it due to excessive interest, but now it's back (thanks for the tip-off, Seniath). Do do do go looky if you missed it first time. And the Halo 3 reference was, I'm sure, devastating in its timeliness originally but now reads as odd and outdated. Sigh.]

Additional update – here’s the blog of the chap behind Launchball, detailing some of the thinking and backstory behind this excellent game’s creation.

Why yes, since you ask, I do own a copy of Halo 3. Except it’s currently still in the shrink wrap as, frankly, I already had better things to be doing. And now, I’ve also got free thingy Launchball to eat up my time. Trust me, this one will make you feel a whole lot better about yourself than grenading another Grunt will.

Bungie’s design ethos for Halo may be ’30 seconds of fun’ , but that 30 seconds is just shooting people, innit? Launchball, created by the Science Museum in London (which would make me feel a swell of patriotic pride if only the part of my brain that associates personal worth with the patch of land I happened to be born in functioned properly), is all about 30 seconds of ever-changing fun. Why? Clicky below to find out. Don’t stop reading here because it looks like the post ends. It doesn’t. That’s just the internet playing tricks on you.
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Welcome back to Rock, Paper, Shotgun’s exclusive interview with Team Fortress 2 developers, Robin Walker and Charlie Brown. (Here’s Part One if you missed it.) This time we get down to the finer details of the classes on offer, and talk about their evolution, as well as discussing Valve’s other great obsession, PopCap’s Peggle. But first we talked about the remarkable part humour had to play in TF2′s development.

RPS: I want to ask about the role of humour in the game. You watch the promo movies, and they’re really hilarious, but you think: how can those possibly carry over into a multiplayer game where there’s people playing everyone? And yet somehow it has.

Robin Walker: It actually came about the other way.

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Oh, praise the Lord of Gaming – someone, finally, agrees with me about Peggle.

Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, developer of the wonderful Trilby adventure games, and now Mr Famous for his ludicrously good Zero Punctuation Flash reviews on The Escapist, entirely concurs with me that a) Peggle is fun and distracting, but not incredible, and b) Bookworm Adventures is better! Mr Yahtzee – marry me. Here it is:

This is made all the more vindicating having just got back from a Peggle-obsessed Valve, where the game is still the number two played Steam game on the in-house Steam Community. I tried to promote Bookworm as best I could, but… well, wait for the interviews.

(I should add, I’m not affiliating myself with Yahtzee’s comments on PopCap, as I’ve not given the subject enough thought.)

Gman loves Peggle.

And RPS loves Dartt. Good Work.

Valve have just announced that The Orange Box is available to pre-order on Steam. And there are a few good reasons to do so.

First of all, there’s the rather big announcement that pre-ordering will secure you access to the Team Fortress 2 beta test, which (also just announced) opens on the 17th. A pretty huge incentive there, with this being the most exciting looking multiplayer in forever and ever. A chance to see those pretties a month early in enticing indeed.

For those a bit annoyed at having to buy Half-Life 2 and Episode 1 again when ordering the set, the pricing should quickly put that to rest. To get the whole box (HL2, Ep 1, Ep 2, TF2 and Portal – phew) will cost you a pre-order price of $45 (£22 (£25 with tax)). To buy the three new games individually will cost you $80 (£40). So, um, the whole lot then, maybe? Even better, Valve have said that those still miffed can “gift” their duplicates to friends. Which is nice.

But perhaps there is one more piece of news that will have people pre-ordering in their mad droves. Coming up on page two!
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This is so great it deserves its own post.

Click for bigness.

So I was just telling a cynical chum to buy Peggle, or be damned, and he asked if viewing the ad-funded version browser version counted against his descent to hell. Of course, being the RPS daily dunce, I had no idea there was one, or that it was a free as (advert-ridden) sunshine. It isn’t as good as the full retail version, by virtue of being trapped in a browser, but you can now get to Peggle without having to part with seven British pounds , or fifteen Yanqui dollars. See the “Also Available Online” bit at the bottom of that page for the link. You need to install a browser plugin, then all the Peggle is your oyster, or something.

Peggle, in case you’ve been entombed in a rock for past year, is the best puzzle thing since sliced Tetris.