Spotlight on Skyworks Day Three: World Cup Air Hockey
by Eric March on April 22, 2009 at 10:40 am
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(3 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
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App Name: | World Cup Air Hockey |
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| Developer: | Skyworks |
Version: | 1.0 | |
| Publisher: | Skyworks |
Size: | 4.5 MB |
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| Category: | Sports Games |
Price: | $2.99 | |
Since we’re on the topic of table-based sports games, we’ll move into day 3 of the Skyworks spotlight with World Cup Air Hockey, which dovetails rather nicely with yesterday’s coverage of Ping Pong.
There are a lot of similarities here, since I’m certain both games share a lot of code; the same global leaderboard is here, and the same three-tiered tournament mode is here, as are the head-to-head and practice modes. The only thing really missing is a single-player arcade mode — though I’m not really certain what they’d be able to do with such a mode. The graphics and sounds here are all up to Skyworks’ level of polish, which is fairly top shelf stuff, so really, all I have to do here is focus on the gameplay.
Now, I’ve played a number of different air hockey games on the iPhone now — Touch Hockey FS5 and Fan Caps being two that I’ve actually reviewed way back when Frapstr wasn’t as purty as it is now, so unlike Ping Pong, Skyworks has some stiff competition on this blog. (Okay, Fan Caps is cheating a little bit, since it’s not really air hockey in the traditional sense.) How does Skyworks’ latest table sport stack up?
Pretty well, actually. It comes at it from the same perspective as Ping Pong so you get the usual end-of-the-table view of the action. Also like Ping Pong, they avoid the dreaded thumb-obscures-the-action by having the paddle float above your thumb, so you can see your way clear to slamming the puck into the other guy’s goal. The biggest difference from Ping Pong here — apart from the obvious fact that it isn’t a game of ping pong — is that your paddle is considerably smaller and rounder, while the object you’re aiming at is a bit larger. But it’s an example of how small differences can make big changes to the play dynamics.
The table, puck and paddles all seem to be roughly regulation size, which is nice that they’ve made the effort to keep this as realistic as possible. There’s a vague sense though that it all seems a wee bit too small, which makes aiming the paddle and taking moderately precise shots difficult unless you’ve got impeccable hand-eye coordination. I did once upon a time. Then I hit my 30s. At any rate, I get the feeling that if it was zoomed in a bit, or used real 3D and a dynamic camera something like iFoosball (or Fan Caps for that matter) then I think accuracy could be improved, and thus the overall gameplay experience. It’s not bad — not at all, there is still some great, fast-paced frenetic action here and I had some real fun keeping volleys going with a 4-star opponent (who inevitably kicked my butt anyway), but I couldn’t seem to return the puck with any great degree of accuracy at the pace the game expected me to play at.
So, that’s the point I’m getting at here: It’s a very good game of air hockey with some great presentation, good sound, a cool arena-style overhead display, and some often frenetic air hockey action that I nevertheless feel could have been improved were it only possible to make things a bit bigger and thus easier to handle. I’m not talking about turning it into the Duplo blocks of the air hockey world, just adding a bit of dynamic zoom perhaps so you don’t feel like you’re batting around a little power mint with a chocolate M&M. (I was going to say “Smartie” but that means something different to Americans which we in Canada call “Rockets.” Mmm, Rockets…)
I also wanted to point out something I just realized and didn’t notice before: The nations you can choose from as opponents all have varying difficulty levels as I’ve mentioned before — but those difficulty levels are randomly assigned from game to game, which I thought was sort of cool. I was all set to do the Nelson Muntz “HA-ha!” seeing that the Americans were the “easy” targets while Canadians were four-star tough until I played again and realized the tables had turned.
Nevertheless, very good air hockey game, lots of fun, but feels just a tad too small for comfort. Your mileage may vary. My reflexes may suck. Either way, it’s still a good addition to any air hockey fan’s collection.
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Posted in Developer Spotlight, Games: Sports, Paid Apps
