It’s not that often that a perfectly good and functional air hockey video game drops. In fact, considering that the grotty arcade staple translates so readily to the sphere, very few air hockey games release in general. One of life’s persisting mysteries, right there.
However, fear not Switch 2-owning air hockey fans (which I’m sure is a large demographic), as Handy Hockey is now here, it costs a fiver and, to borrow an old proverb, ‘it does exactly what it says on the tin.’ This re-release/remaster of 2010’s Japan-only DSI title from ITL is the epitome of laser-focused game design. There is one thing to do here, and it’s play air hockey. Go *insert air hockey team name*!
This lovely little Switch 2 version allows players to compete with a mixture of human/CPU opponents in matches that can be either singles or doubles. Simples. Now, the real juice is that you can also choose to play in a variety of ways, because Switch 2 gonna switch, too.
You’ve got normal TV play from side-on and top-to-bottom viewpoints, and you get to use mouse controls to direct your paddle. You can also choose to use a controller in regular ways if it suits you better. However, the real clincher, and the reason why this one deserves your money, is that you can play with your Switch 2 lying flat on a surface to replicate an arcade table, then sit across from each other and dig into 1v1/2v2 air hockey with zero distractions.
There are no other modes to mess with, no collectibles, or towers to climb, there’s not even any emotional banter between a Godfather and his broken son. None of that. Get rid of it. Handy Hockey gives you air hockey. Full stop and/or period.
If anything didn’t work well, the whole thing would collapse on its airy arse in short order and we’d have to go back to playing the grabby machine in the corner for knock-off Kirby plushies. But — and remember this game costs less than a (nice) sandwich — the controls with all the motion tech and mouse stuff are really well done. It just works. It’s responsive, you can give the puck a gentle nudge or power blast. And when people (me) get over hitting things as hard as they can, well, it’s quite strategic.
I’ve been playing four-player with my wife and kids, all using Mouse Mode, and it’s the sort of thing (because of the lack of other modes or online) that’s got a tabletop game purity to it. No distractions, just family fun time. My kids also played it later alone, so that’s worth a mention, as it rarely happens.
It’s advertised as a 120fps experience, and performance-wise — as you’d expect for such a simple game — everything is good. And it looks fine, too: clear, concise, and easy to parse. On the negative side, it would have been nice to have a bit of character added via avatars and persistent profiles for players to keep a history of their play. A few different tables would really help things from growing stale, too.