World Cup Ping Pong – During my senior year of high school, we were given the choice in phys ed of playing competitive ping pong, or doing aerobics. Since it was the 80’s and I was already taking a Jane Fonda-style aerobics class three nights a week, I chose ping pong, and I discovered that I kicked ping pong butt.

The World Cup Ping Pong app from Skyworks is an excellent simulation of playing real ping pong. Just like the real game, you do not need athletic ability to excel at World Cup Ping Pong, just good hand-eye coordination.

One of the best features of World Cup Ping Pong is that you have a choice of paddles with varying power and spin. The spin is realistic and a most effective tool for beating your opponent.

World Cup Ping Pong offers four different ways to play. In Practice Mode, you play against the iPhone, who also kicks ping pong butt. You play the iPhone in Tournament Mode, too, where I always seem to get eliminated in the first round. In Head-to-Head Mode, you can play against a friend, with each of you taking one side of the iPhone ping pong table. World Cup Ping Pong’s Arcade Mode is equivalent to hitting the ping pong ball off the garage door, with a few targets to make it challenging.

World Cup Ping Pong is hard – for those of you who did not go through a phase of playing ping pong like it was going out of style. Truth be told, I keep losing when I play against the iPhone. I’m human, so I make mistakes.  iPhones are less fallible. One tip: to move your paddle quickly, make sure both the surface of the iPhone screen and your fingers are squeaky clean.

I have only two complaints about World Cup Ping Pong: sometimes you hit the ball over the net but your opponent gets the point. I think it is because you are hitting the net, but there is no indication from World Cup Ping Pong. If you are playing fast enough, it is easy to miss the little details and I would love to know exactly how I screwed up.

My other issue with World Cup Ping Pong is what the heck is a Service Break and why do we need to take one every few points? It breaks my stride and makes me crazy. Skyworks, please get rid of the Service Break in future updates.

Maybe I won my gym class ping pong tournament in 1988 not because I was that good, but because everyone else was worse than me. With World Cup Ping Pong, I aim to see just how good of a ping pong player I can be. World Cup Ping Pong is currently on sale for 99 cents.

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category: Editor's Picks, Games, Simulation