Our latest iPhone App Review covers another Skyworks game, World Cup Air Hockey. I approached this game with both trepedation, based on what I thought of a previous Skyworks production, and glee, being a massive fan of air hockey in the arcades. Air hockey is one of those arcade games that can become quite heated, especially when two evenly matched players are trying to smash the living hell out of the puck and this intense sense of excitement and competition is likely going to be pretty hard to capture on the small screen. There have been a few examples in the past on almost all platforms, admittedly most on larger screens. Still I looked at World Cup Air Hockey with an open mind, eager to like it and eager to have my memories of the arcade transported into my favourite portable gadget.

Hit the read link to see what we thought.

It is true that World Cup Air Hockey authentically replicates at least one of the experiences from the arcades; unfortunately for Skyworks, it’s utter frustration that’s felt when someone hands your ass to you. Don’t get me wrong it’s not because it looks bad, the graphics in the game are pretty good, as with most of the Skyworks productions I’ve had the pleasure to witness. It’s also not because the format of the game is crap, far from it. You have a choice of a simple practice mode, a two player on one iPhone Head to Head game or a full blown tournament which you play through facing off in three knockout rounds against increasingly skilled countries. From my perspective even the choice of countries for you to play as or against is good with the UK, USA, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, Canada and Japan all available to play with or thrash. It’s even got online scoreboards, but none of that can get over the overriding factor in my total frustration with the game, the controls. Now I’ve played with it a fair bit, thinking that it would just be something you have to get used to, as all air hockey games all suffer from the lack of an actual paddle on the table, but I’ve not managed to improve much no matter how much I concentrate on it. Whatever you do, from my experience, you’re just as likely to miss the puck and smack it in your own net as you are to project it down the table towards your opponents goal. I can tell you, it’s extremely frustrating to have almost everything there and fail at the last hurdle. As the game stands, I’d give it about 5 mins before I’ve hurled my iPhone out the window, struggling to beat even the easiest opponents due simply to the fact you can’t reliably hit the puck. I’m guessing that’s the same sense of frustration people who don’t have good hand-eye coordination or people who simply suck at air hockey feel when they play against a seasoned veteran (a problem I definitely don’t suffer from in real life).

As about the only, yet singularly crucial, stumbling block in an otherwise fun little game, Skyworks might be able to fix it up with an update. Until that happens, unless you enjoy the frustration of not being able to hit something, or are a little more adept at finger control then I can’t honestly recommend the game. It’s a close but no cigar, especially at the asking price of $1.99 (£1.79). Check out the gallery of screen shots after the Read link and the game play demo here if you’re still interested.

Skyworks World Cup Air Hockey is currently available in the App Store (iTunes link) for $1.99 (£1.79). The application was at version 1.0 at the time of press.