This review originally appeared within iLounge’s iOS Gems series within the compilation article, iPhone Gems: Sports Games – Soccer, Golf, Air Hockey, Tennis + More. Additional details may be found in the original article.
Air hockey isn’t actually a sport, per se, but it’s one of the most competitive action-oriented table games out there. Based on ice hockey, the “air” version is traditionally played on a flat surface that has a light blast of air running through holes on its top, enabling a plastic disk-shaped puck to float gently above rather than resting on the table.
Two players each are given an oversized plastic tool called a mallet to swat the puck and prevent it from entering an oversized goal. Typically, the first player to get seven goals wins the game.
The two best air hockey games for the iPhone OS take different approaches to rendering the game fun on a handheld device. Air Hockey ($1) by Acceleroto/Bryan Duke takes the “realistic” approach—its version looks and feels pretty close to the real thing.
The puck is the right general size, the mallets are the right size, and scoring takes place unintrusively on the top of the table. Sound effects and physics simulate the real game, as it’s played, without a lot of flash, and there are four levels of difficulty ranging from easy to an amusingly awesome pro, plus a two-player game. In our view, though this isn’t the most amazing iPhone game we’ve ever played, Accelerato gets the pricing just right for a game of its caliber—this is very worthy of the $1 asking price, and legitimately fun to play if you like air hockey.
