It’s time again for another iPhone game review. On the chopping block today is another Skyworks entry, World Cup Ping Pong. This game keeps with the theme set by most of Skyworks other titles with reasonable graphics, several play modes and online and local score boards. Ping pong features Tournament and practice modes in which you pick your country from UK, USA, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Germany, Canada and Japan and play against another either in a knockout tournament or in a single match. There is also a two player on one iPhone Head to Head mode that pits you against a friend, which works ok but makes everything a little small. Good for a quick bash but not something you’re likely to gather round and all play on a regular basis. There’s also an Arcade mode in which you play on half a table and try and keep the ball in play. Targets are put up on the other side for you to hit and score points which makes it a relatively fun game to play if you fancy something a little different from the opponent based modes.

Options in Ping Pong are a little limited, with volume for sound effects and two ’sound tracks’ that you’re likely to want to switch off after about 5 mins, which is unfortunately not possible. The only option is to turn the volume right down, which doesn’t allow you to play your own tracks in the background, a disappointing omission. The control scheme is what let down the recently reviewed World Cup Air Hockey, but in this case I’m pleased to report that the controls work quite well, with a simple sliding motion both forwards and backwards and side to side which provides power and spin on the ball, both of which you will have to master in an effort to beat some of the better countries. Overall it’s a reasonable game for a quick game of Ping Pong, especially if you’re a fan of other video game implementations of the classic game and is definitely the best implementation on the iPhone to date lacking only online/Wifi multiplayer which might be asking a bit much for a game that’s as rapid as this.

Skyworks World Cup Ping Pong is currently available in the App Store (iTunes link) for $1.99 (£1.19). The application was at version 1.0 at the time of press.

Hit the Read link for some screen shots of the game in action and here for a demo of the game from Skyworks.