Overview
From the iTunes' page: "The classic game of Pong, revitalized in stunning 3-D!
Vector Pong features a full OpenGL 3D engine, tilt controls, and best of all...
Wifi-enabled network play. Use the iPhone's accelerometer to serve, deflect, and spike your way to victory. Begin by playing against three challenging levels of AI. Then, engage your friends with two-player network mode."
Gameplay
3-D Vector Pong roars up with a cool, retro looking Gyrocade logo. From there, the game jumps to the 'Main Menu' which contains three options: 'Single Player', 'Two Players', and 'Instructions'.
Let's go into detail about the 'Single Player' gameplay mode.
Once you click on 'Single Player', you are taken to another menu, where you can choose from three AI levels: 'Easy', 'Veteran', and 'Pro'. For one thing, their order is a little confusing -- 'Veteran' seems like a huge leap from 'Easy' and just a small hop from 'Pro'.
From there, you are taken to to what they call the 'Calibration Helper'. This is something that was put in as an update which is now available, so make sure to get it. What this does is calibrates the middle point of the screen to the angle you are holding your iPhone. However, this 'helper' really doesn't help very much, as it is hit or miss, and doesn't calibrate very accurately, making it pretty useless as a tool.
When you've "chosen" your angle, you then click the check-mark to continue onto the game.
The actual game starts off just like Pong, with a 3-D twist. You face the ball and have a paddle. You tap where you want to hit the ball and start the game. The ball will bounce off the walls to the opponents end, and they in turn knock it back to you. You just go back and forth, with the objective of getting the ball past your AI opponent into the black background behind them.
The points system works just like real tennis, going 0-15, 0-30, deuce, advantage, etc., and each AI level is honestly about the same difficulty, all being a bit too hard.
Control-wise 3-D Vector Pong is a flop; they are too sensitive and, as mentioned above, don't calibrate well. This is something I hope the developers will fine-tune in upcoming releases.
There are also no tournaments, sets, or anything to allow more advanced or continued gameplay. You just run through one game and, win or lose, start over. Not to mention that there is no pause option in the game, which is
very frustrating.
There are two other options from the 'Main Menu'. The next one we'll talk about is 'Two Player' mode. When you choose this option, you can either 'Create a Game', or 'Join a Game'. Both work only when you have two iPhones, iPod touches, or a combination of the two on the same WiFi network. I personally dont' have any iPhone buddies, so I could not venture into the 'Two Player' mode, but judging from the sheer simplistic and quite rudimentary design of the 'Single Player' mode, I'm guessing gameplay is similar.
The last 'Main Menu' option is the instructions page, which simply says, "
Tilt to move deflector. Tap screen to serve. Deflect shots past your opponent to score."
That's it, that's all that 3-D Vector Pong has to offer. Let's review it now.
Review
Well, back in the day, Pong amazed everyone by being the world's first video game, and amazing it was. But, unfortunately, we've moved into the 21st century people. Pong is no longer the high-tech, futuristic game of yore. It's primitive, rudimentary, and simplistic design was mesmerizing in the 1970s, but it's time to move on.
So, Gyrocade tried to spice it up by adding a 3-D twist. Not enough.
The game is just boring. It has no levels, just three AI choices that all are pretty much the same difficulty, and are all a bit too difficult I found. But that could have just been because of the horrible controls. The Accelerometer is capable of much more precise controls. These are just sloppy, over-sensitive, annoying, and all-over
bad controls.
This game is entertaining for about five minutes until the novelty of having Pong on your iPhone wears off. And trust me, five minutes is probably an overstatement. It's just not that fun. The Open GL is pretty nice, and the graphics are not bad at all, but it sadly doesn't make up for the rest of the games idiosyncrasies.
Summary
It's a novelty. It's fun for a bit, and then get's boring. Fast. Pong is from primitive times, let's leave it there.
