World's Greatest Peggle Shot?

Michael Gartenberg | June 15, 2007, 05:31 PM

Is this perhaps the world's greatest Peggle shot ever?

And a few tips from the folks at PopCap on how to beat those last few challenges. And yes, I really like this game.

Basic Aiming Strategies:

• The ball will head to the exact position of the tip of your mouse cursor when you fire; rather than using the on-screen 'directional arrow' which only provides a rough indication of where your shot will hit its first obstacle, use your cursor arrow for precise aiming.
• Learn to estimate where the ball will bounce; once you get good you can usually know the second and even sometimes the third peg that a given shot will hit.
• Aim your shots like you would aim when you are playing pool. The bounce isn't exactly the same but you will pick up on the differences pretty fast.
• Aiming your shot to run parallel to a line of bricks can lead into a slide that hits all of the bricks.
• Use the mouse wheel or arrow keys to fine tune your shots with the greatest precision.

Shot Planning:

• Try to get the out-of-the-way orange pegs early. Think to yourself, "If I don't ever shoot here is the ball likely to bounce here by itself?" In general this means that you should try to hit pegs higher on the board first.
• Look for pegs that you can't get with a direct shot. Make sure to focus on getting them early, even if initially this means striving to have ricochets of shots take out blue pegs that are in the way.
• If there are pegs in your way think about whether you could bounce off that peg to make the shot still worth while. Another option could be to make a bank shot to go around the "blocking" peg.
• If you see a good shot you might want to wait a turn or two before taking it. The purple peg might move to a place where you can easily hit it making your good shot into a fantastic shot.

Scoring System details:

• Peg values go up as the number of remaining orange pegs decreases. The Fevermeter on the right indicates the current point multiplier, and increases over the course of each individual level, such that your final shot will often be multiplied by 5x or more.
• The point value of a peg is multiplied by the highest number lit up on the fever meter.
• The total score on a given shot is determined by adding up the point values of all of the pegs hit during that shot, then multiplying this number by the number of pegs hit. This means that it's important to hit a lot of pegs and to hit pegs that are worth a lot of points.
• Try to get an extra ball with every shot. Once you understand the scoring you will be surprised how often you can pull it off. You might even be lucky enough to win a ball on points AND have the shot land in the bucket, thereby earning two balls on one shot.

Miscellaneous Tips:

• One of the better skills to learn is the ability to make "skill shots," particularly the Free Ball Skills shot where the ball bounces off of a single peg then goes into the bucket. These rack up a lot of points and are essentially free since you get back the ball you shot. This can involve ricocheting your shot from a peg near the top of the screen off a wall and into the bucket, or angling your shot so it glances off a peg and flies straight into the bucket. (Getting five skill shots in a row earns a Mad Skillz bonus of 25,000 points; 10 in a row scores a Crazy Mad Skillz bonus of 100,000.)
• Clear all of the pegs on a level to get Ultra Extreme Fever! This makes all of the holes on the bottom worth 100,000 points, guaranteeing a big score.
• If you're having trouble with the Challenge levels, try using different Peggle Masters. Some Magic Powers are dramatically more effective for certain challenges than others. For example, on a Challenge level involving hitting all the orange pegs, or all of the pegs period, the Zen Shot power-up might be critical to hitting one or two pegs which are obstructed by an obstacle. Conversely, the Space Blast or Spooky Ball power-ups are often better for achieving ultra-high scores.