Zeke's Peak

I don’t like having to play and win other games before I can play Zeke’s Peak or Ice Cold Beer. I bought the game to play those and I want to be able to skip right to them.

I found an original "Ice Cold Beer" arcade/pinball cabinet in a retro arcade in Vancouver and I was blown away by the simple, challenging and amazingly fun mechanical aspect of balancing and dexterity reflexes skill that the game provided. I then went down a rabbit hole finding out more about the game and that led me to this digital version of Zeke's Peak - a sister game to Ice Cold Beer. It's amazingly well put together. They physics are spot on and not only does it have the classic Ice Cold Beer (one of the first fill cabinets you can unlock) and Zeke's Peak, but dozens and dozens of cabinets and challenges. It's addictively fun and I've only played 2 hours of it today. I'm really impressed with what the developers have done here to recreated the physics of the original cabinets. It looks like they have stopped updating and developing it, but from what I can tell, it's a complete product. I found one video where someone has made a replica arcade cabinet with a vertical monitor using this version of Zeke's Peak. And how amazingly fun that looks. Even just playing on a PC, with keyboard controls, this game kicks and I suspect there are many more hours of fun play in it for me.

Peak.

This is a good port of the arcade games Zeke's Peak and Ice Cold Beer -- skill games where you work to get a ball into lit holes by raising a metal bar with two joysticks. The gameplay is good but a bit forgiving vs. the original machines, even in pro mode. For early access it's great, but I hope that they do a bit of work on the ball physics as the ball never picks up momentum if the bar is at a slight angle, making it very easy to precisely control the ball in ways that aren't possible on the real machines.

This is well worth a purchase if you like these sort of games and It's less than 10 bucks. It really feels like the original mechanical arcade machines. You use the L and R bumpers on your Xbox controller to raise and level the bar. The challenge is addicting!

I completed the first loop on an actual machine -- but the machine didn't have audio on -- did a google search and discovered this. So I bought this to hear the loop sequence rather than searching on youtube. The machine did not loop! it just ended after reaching the 10th hole! The physics is inaccurate but I can forgive that. The other thing is that this steam version has two guard rails on the extreme ends that are also not on the machine. Not a big deal since the inaccurate physics makes this version easier. But I would prefer no guard rails and more accurate physics. The arcade loop is such a simple concept, with such a niche machine, why remove the biggest gameplay mechanic? It's not like you need to limit the players play time to eat more credits like an actual arcade would. Disappointing.