… I recognize that this somewhat falls under the category of personal responsibility and so on and so forth, but if it isn’t too much trouble, would you consider adding a clock to the interface of all your games from this point forwards? I would appreciate it and I’m sure that my boss would as well.

In somewhat related news, after finishing the “adventure” mode of Peggle Deluxe and feeling like I’d kicked that particular monkey, I realized that I’d bought the game as part of a bundle that included the sequel, Peggle Nights.

…

The hook in Peggle Nights is that you’re seeing the secret dreams and aspirations of all the wacky characters from the first game, and it’s a pretty amusing hook. The lobster character, in particular, easily the most annoying and most useless in the first game, has the most entertaining fantasy – destroying Paris as a Godzilla-sized crustacean. It almost makes up for the five levels you have to suffer through with him again.

As for the game, well, nothing much has changed. You’re still bouncing balls off pegs in an effort to clean the board, there’s still an element of randomness that can infuriate at times but means that you pull off some stunningly unlikely shots at others, and it’s still basically a digital sugar rush.

The last level is perhaps just a little TOO dependent on luck; it has a design where almost every peg on the board is deliberately occluded by barriers and actually aiming at anything turns into a matter of needing to make bank shots off said barriers and off the walls.

That said, and coming back to the reason for this post’s introductory paragraph, it kept me plugging away until nearly one in the morning without realizing I was doing so, so I can scarcely complain.

Anyway, with both games triumphed over, I can get back to trying to recover the last shreds of my dignity by playing something with explosions and improbably dressed women, though hopefully not something where the improbably dressed women are what is exploding.