Simulated air hockey at its best

Air Hockey Free is a very realistic arcade app for Mac users that lets you pit your skills against a computer to score air hockey goals.

If you’ve ever played a real game of air hockey, you already know the general gist of what you’ve got to do to win Air Hockey Free, similar to Shufflepuck REVOLUTION. Just maneuver your touchpad or mouse over the hockey mallet, hit the puck and the game heats up quickly. You can play against a computerized opponent or in Tournament mode if you have an internet connection. Air Hockey Free’s interface is crisp and nice-looking, and the sound effects are spot on.

For a free game, Air Hockey Free has a lot of impressive features and settings to play around with. You can choose from a slew of different difficulty levels, for one. They go all the way from “Kiddie” to “Insane!” with some more moderate difficulties in between. You can also change the look of your game board within the themes setting. Air Hockey Free has four different themes to choose from.

Controlling your hockey mallet is the only really tedious thing about Air Hockey Free. Whenever you go outside the limits of the game board (even in full screen mode), you lose control of your mallet and it stops moving. This takes some serious practice to get the hang of.

Otherwise, Air Hockey Free is a thoroughly engrossing air hockey arcade app, with top-notch sound effects and looks.