TyReview

Here are the achievements for Peggle on the 360 along with my impressions.

Sorted Alphabetically:

Ace of Adventure (30): In a peg defying feat, score 20 million points in a single play-through of Adventure mode.
Be Cool (10): Hit the last orange then the last blue to rack up a Cool Clear. (Except Duel)
Catch the Fever (5): Cure your need for fever with an Extreme Fever. (Except Duel)
Doctor of the Peggle Arts (30): Clear all pegs and bricks in every level in Quick Play or Adventure mode and gain explodious fame!
Free! Free! Free Ball! (15): Rack up the score or hit the bucket for 3 free balls in one shot.
Go ULTRA! (15): Clear all the pegs in a level. It’s pretty extreme, but you look up to it. (Except Duel)
Party Master (10): Winning a Peg Party is way better than playing with a ball of yarn!
Peggle Graduate (20): Complete Adventure Mode and earn your degree from the Peggle Institute.
Peggle Professor (25): Complete every level in Challenge Mode and even the Peggle Masters will be impressed.
People’s Ovation (10): Win a 4-player Peg Party by a whoppin’ 100,000 points to acquire everlasting coolness.
Rock Lobster (15): Win a Xbox LIVE Duel like a crustacean born. ‘Ave you tried ze flippers?
Stylish Project (15): Bust out all your Skillz, Bounces, and Slides for 1 million style shot points!

Impressions and achievement review after the jump.

This is a pretty solid selection of achievements. You’ve got your standard easy achievements like beating adventure mode once for Peggle Graduate, slowly earning style points over time for Stylish Project that doesn’t even need extra effort aside from continually playing the game and earning a single extreme fever for Catch the Fever which should take all of 5 minutes with the game. The 3 Free Ball achievement isn’t too hard to get either, if going for aces on all the levels this should come easily in time. Go Ultra isn’t the hardest achievement here, since you have to do this in order to earn other achievements. If you have a really tough time getting an ace on a level (which is OK regardless), you have much more to worry about with these achievements than Go Ultra. Be Cool can be a hard achievement to get at first, but if you’re constantly aiming to ace levels, at some point there should be a situation where there’s one blue and one orange peg left and it shouldn’t be too hard to get a cool clear.

There’s a few “try out the multiplayer” achievements, Party Master and Rock Lobster, that are pretty simple to get as long as you can win a single multiplayer match and obviously help casual players get more out of the game. There’s a harder multiplayer achievement to go for with People’s Ovation that will take a good amount of effort and gives you something to work for while you chill out with some of the most relaxing multiplayer the 360 has to offer.

The hard achievements to be earned here are Ace of Adventure, Doctor of the Peggle Arts and Peggle Professor. Depending on how you feel about achievements, these are either a great addition or a nuisance. I like to think they are a great way to motivate you to keep playing Adventure Mode, Quick Play and Challenge until you earn them and consequently pretty much complete the game.

All in all this is a great mix of easy, medium and hard achievements. Some games have achievements that are too easy to really present a way to fully appreciate or complete the game and others have ones that are too hard to be considered an effective way to fully appreciate a game. Peggle exceptionally succeeds at offering achievements that have a good mix of rewards for both trying every aspect of the game as well as “completing” most aspects of the game.