Our playtime with the Xbox Live Arcade–exclusive multiplayer mode of the smash pachinko-meetspinball puzzler hit Peggle Deluxe began innocently enough: “Let’s play best two out of three,” challenged PopCap VP Greg Canessa. After Canessa took the first round, we responded with, “Um, best out of five.” Following a couple of victories for our camp, the competitive Canessa countered: “OK, best out of seven!” And once that was done, we both looked at each other and one of us asked, “Can we go again?” before PopCap’s friendly PR rep told us that our time was up.

Such is the power of Peggle — a simple game where you aim a ball at some pegs, watch it bounce, and try to clear all of the orange-colored ones. But newsflash: it’s mesmerizing on a scale that seems to rival, if not outright trounce, the appeal of Hexic.

Packing 55 “boards” in its single-player Adventure Mode, the Arcade edition boasts the aforementioned gripping new four-player Xbox Live Party feature, plus a two-player Master Duel and a Challenge Mode. In the latter, you have to meet various victory conditions, such as clearing the board with X number of balls or nailing X number of orange pegs with one ball.

Set to siphon just 10 bucks from your wallet — that’s cheaper than the PC version, for the record — PopCap apparently wants to reel you in cheap, and then start pushing packs of downloadable boards, like any good dealer would. We have a feeling we won’t be able to say no.