Watching those floating points count up is half the fun.

Ever since its 2007 release on the PC, Peggle has always felt to me like it was begging for release on a portable system. The short levels and pick-up-and-play design make it the kind of game you want to fire up for five minutes in a bank line, not the kind you want to wait five minutes for while your PC starts up. The simple, ball-bouncing action is addictive enough to while away a long plane ride, but slightly less addictive if you're hunched over the same desk you use to do your taxes. And a PC's high-end graphics card and full keyboard support seem like a bit of a waste for a game that can literally be controlled with one button, and whose most taxing graphical requirement is the display of a rainbow at the end of a level.

So you'd think that the recent Nintendo DS port, called Peggle: Dual Shot, would be an absolute slam-dunk winner of a game. But while the port is a winner, it's one that doesn't get through without some significant problems. Rather than a slam dunk, it's more like a layup that bounces off the rim a few times before finally sinking in. The result is the same, but the effect is diminished by the execution.

Thankfully, the core Peggle design in Dual Shot has changed very little from the excellent PC versions. As the title implies, Dual Shot combines the levels and challenges from the original Peggle and 2008 sequel Peggle Nights into one portable whole. The game still plays like a mix of Pachinko and Plinko. You shoot a ball into a sea of blue pegs and watch as it (hopefully) ricochets into the few interspersed orange pegs. It's the kind of design that's simple enough for a non-gamer to pick up in less than a minute -- which means it's also the kind that risks getting stale after just a few minutes of play.

Those gems represent one of the only new additions to the DS version.

The most surprising thing about Peggle (and Dual Shot), then, is how much the game deepens as you play. What starts off as a seemingly random collection of lucky bounces slowly unfolds into a billiards-like test of geometry and planning ahead with practice. Aiming for the crucial Free Ball Bucket sliding around the bottom of the screen introduces an important element of timing, while learning how to use the 10 slowly introduced special abilities -- everything from a multiball to a peg-incinerating fireball to a computerized shot-improvement service -- keeps the whole experience feeling fresh. By the time you complete the main single-player game and move on to the punishingly difficult tests in the Challenge mode or the excellent back-and-forth of the two-player Duel mode, you'll find a game that's an almost perfect mix of skillful strategy and serendipitous shots.

The DS version adds a few bits of icing to this already thick gameplay cake. The most noticeable addition is a new "Gem Underground" hidden below each level and activated by hitting five point-increasing purple pegs. These rooms feel slightly out of step with the existing Peggle levels, bouncing the ball around corridors filled with point-granting gems at excessively high speeds using player-activated bumpers (as a side note, the Gem Underground's free balls also make it much easier to complete some of the game's tougher levels). Dual Shot also includes 10 exclusive, unlockable quick play levels designed by port developer Q Entertainment; these feel similarly random and out-of-place amongst the carefully designed PopCap originals.

Still, it's hard to gripe about added content, regardless of the quality. What's easier to gripe about are the things that this DS port actually takes away from its PC cousins -- most notably their impressive graphical fidelity. Now I realize that graphics are not the most important part of a game, and that awful graphics can often hide excellent gameplay. In the case of Peggle: Dual Shot, though, the low-quality graphics actively get in the way of that gameplay. On the PC, it was largely possible to predict how a meticulously lined-up shot would ricochet off a precise pixel on a round peg. Take away some of those pixels, as you must when porting the game to the DS' tiny, low-resolution screens, and those pegs start looking more square than round, turning predictable shot precision into sloppy guesswork.

The useful-but-not-quite-useful-enough zoom function.

Dual Shot does its best to overcome this shortcoming with a zoom function -- just hold the stylus in place for a second and you get a larger, closer view of a small section of the playfield on the top screen, along with more granular aiming controls. While this feature definitely helps, the zoomed area still isn't detailed enough to allow for the accurate angle predictions that are key for skillful play. Not to mention that planning long-distance shots across the entire playfield requires inaccurate darting between the top and bottom screens -- an awkward task. When playing the DS version I found myself frequently missing ricochet shots I know I'd be able to hit on my 17-inch PC display. Maybe that fancy graphics card is good for something after all...

Besides these gameplay issues, though, the downgraded graphics just make the game less enjoyable to watch. There, I said it. Call me a graphics whore if you must, but a large part of the appeal of Peggle for me is just watching the ball bounce around the playfield in smooth, accurate arcs, setting off vibrant explosions of light and color as it does. Not only are those explosions tinier and harder to enjoy in the DS version, but the ball flies with a choppy, streaky animation that's a downright strain on the eyes. And while we're at it, what's with the crazy, large, oddly animated pictures of the helper characters that take up most of the top screen? Surely there's a better use for this space -- say, a more persistent statistics/score display, perhaps?

A few other omitted features -- such as the ability to save shot replays and Marina's awesome Electrobolt ability -- keep the DS version from being a perfect handheld port. But none of these problems really means much in the end. The strength of the core Peggle idea, combined with the newfound ability to whip out a DS and play a quick round at the slightest sign of boredom, make it a hard game not to recommend. Still, I can't help but wonder if the experience wouldn't be better on the high-resolution screens of the PSP or iPhone.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.