Image: Personal Applets Corporation
Tennis Flirt is a new app from Personal Applets Corporation (requires iOS 4.1) that combines tennis on the iPhone and social networking via text or chat “flirts.” Voice chat with Tennis Flirt is only available when you connect through Wi-Fi. This game was thoroughly tested by my lab minion er, my teenager and I at home, and who better to break down the quick and dirty of an iPhone app than a member of Generation Z?
General features:
With both Tennis Flirt game modes (more on this later) you can change the color of the court, the color of the racket and the number of winning sets from one to three. One fun community feature of this app is that you are able to access the leaderboards via Game Center, comparing your scores with those of your friends. For those who mix music and tennis, you can import tracks from your own music library. Oddly enough, there is no sound when your racquet hits the ball down the court. For you visual learners, you can watch a three minute YouTube video on how to game with another player and with your friends.
Game modes:
Tennis Flirt has two modes of playing, Bounce Tennis and Open Tennis. Bounce Tennis is the less realistic game mode where the ball bounces off the sides. It’s a good idea to start with this mode and learn the game. At the end of the first game you will soon be serving aces and cursing the referee like the less kinder, less gentler tennis stars of old.
Open Tennis is the more realistic game mode, where there are actual “out” lines, where you can serve the ball out of bounds. The court is smaller in Open Tennis mode. The more challenging Open Tennis is played with Level 3 ball control. (This ball control setting can be changed in the Control tab). You select the angle of the serve by touching a selected area of the court on the screen (to customize where you serve the ball). After you sign into Game Center and create an ID, you can earn achievements like collecting five cool rewards from your “flirts” or just sending a smiley face if you are satisfied with your flirt session. Game Center IDs remain anonymous until you choose to send your opponent a smiley. With the “Game With A Friend” feature we were able to connect to a friend who had already purchased the game. We also tried the other game mode, “Game With Any Player,” which searches for a random opponent in Game Center. We tried it out twice, but it simply didn’t work. For a quick game of serve and volley, a lot of people will find this game amusing. Not all will find it challenging.
Wired: Gaming (and social networking) together a plus for kids. Has some competitive game-play.
Tired: Dull game mechanics. Simple graphics.
