Paddlewar 360

Pong was one of the first video games and is a classic. I'm sure everyone knows what it is, but just in case... one the left and right sides of the screen are paddles and you move them up and down knocking a ball back and forth until it gets by one of these paddles which results in a point. Players play to a predetermined score. My first experience with pong was through the Video Olympics cartridge on the Atari 2600 although I'm sure I played in store demos prior to that... I was 9 and the memory is a bit weak.

Recently I saw Paddlewar 360 in the Android Market. Paddlewar 360 is a twist on pong that provides a circular field of play and removes the concept of my goal versus your goal. Player just hit the ball back and forth until someone misses. Neat idea!

After playing it several times here are my thoughts:

• This game starts off kind of slow. It offers two modes of play... Beginner and Expert. Beginner starts of VERY slow and takes several volleys to get up to speed such that there's a chance that a player will miss the ball. Expert gets things going a bit faster.
• The touch screen controls that rotate your paddle clockwise or counter-clockwise work well. No problems there other than accidentally pressing the wrong one, but that's all me.
• I did experience some minor slow down or sluggishness during play presumably when someone background task on my Droid decided to wake up and get to work. It was temporary, but did throw off my timing a bit. It would be nice if that would be fixed.
• No real graphics or sound to report on... the game is all about reacting and hitting the right buttons. What's here works just fine.
• It's ad supported and thus is free for you and me.

In conclusion I give this one 3.5/5 stars (which means 4/5 in the Market as I round in favor of the game). It's good, free entertainment that should keep one amused for at least a little while. A two player mode would be cool as the computer player is very (and perhaps a bit too) good.