Air Hockey for Android

The classic game of Air Hockey, gotta love it! ...Or do you?

Review By ZTEX

First off if you're expecting some fancy new Air Hockey game to blow your mind you're in the wrong spot, miles away even. Now, if you're looking for an Air Hockey game to bring you back to your child hood days, then well this is the game for you. Before we get into the game and it's play, my biggest gripe and problem with this game is the minimal graphics and colors given. With such a basic and standard game idea it's not difficult to jazz this up. The only thing the developers offered was one Table, one set of paddles and a puck - each their own color, never changing. With the addition of a few colors to choose from for your Paddle, and the same ability on the puck you can make this game feel more customizable and personal. Even if they gave us different Tables to play on, with every other opponent you played on a Black, or Red table..that would've been sweet!

As you start with the trial version of this game you're given one difficulty level to play against; Stupid. The AI constantly knocks the puck backwards towards his goal, and just watches it happen. Granted it helps you win, yes....but then again when they beat themselves what kind of satisfaction can that leave you with? If you decide to take the dive and buy this game (usually $.99) you do receive a few more perks. You get multiple difficulty levels to play against, in fact it's stated that the computer difficulty will continue to get better and tougher as you play through it - which is the case because after a few rounds you're having a tough time due to the combination physics and difficulty.

And that brings me to the over-all game play of this Air Hockey game...which is good but can be improved. The paddle given to use is extremely small so anyone's thumb is too big and will make you accidentally hit your puck in the wrong direction, and with the simple fix of allowing someone's track-ball to be used could make this part of the game a non-existent problem for most phones.

Aside from that single problem with the physics, the sound provided is what you'd expect - basic with no music. The only sounds or effects provided were the ones that are made once the paddle hits the ball or the wall..but I couldn't figure out why they wouldn't want to add some sort of bell, or dinger for when you made a goal? Guess we'll never know...but that small addition could save the issue of having little to no sound available.

Lastly, if you plan to play this game, the demo or trial is not worth it as it only has one difficulty with no added depth (ie score or level difficulty like the full) so I highly suggest taking the dive if you feel the required need for this classic game and buy the full version.

NAME: AIR HOCKEY

SYSTEM: Android devices