Pocket Soccer

Let's be realistic-- many apps on our phones are nothing more than time wasters. Got 15 minutes to kill? There's an app for that. I play a lot of Words and Scramble with Friends, check Facebook and Seesmic, plus other random games.

But the one that I keep coming back to is this one, something I found while looking through the top apps section of a magazine at the grocery store a few years back.

Pocket Soccer, by Rastergrid Entertainment. As you can see, it's a three-on-three indoor soccer game, with the three discs moving about the board much like the puck on an air hockey table. Your finger controls where the discs go, and the controls are very responsive. You're able to 'kick' the ball directly, bounce it off a side or end wall, or hit another disc into the ball. All that matters is that the ball goes into the net.

Lots of gameplay options are available in single-player or tournament mode. What kind of ball is used, playing surface, and whether you play to 5 (or 10) or in timed mode. I typically play tournaments with a one-minute clock, choosing a country and trying to win (or tie) four matches to win a title.

Tournament mode screencap. The player can choose any or all of the 16 teams, or let the computer select.

This app has long since reached addictive status for me. I play several times a day, working to get my tourney winning percentage up (currently at 51%). I'm a bit of a stats guy, so I look at wins on easy/medium/hard levels, plus my player rating vs. all who play.

For all the games and time killers on my phone, this is the one I keep coming back to. The only negative I can find is on the title screen, where the World Class option is perpetually 'coming soon.' I'd sure be eager to see the possibilities with that, though if the designers haven't done anything with it yet, it's possible they won't. Also helpful would be an in-progress scoreboard, since the score is only displayed when a goal is scored.

I still love playing the game, though. It has a good beat and I can dance to it. 4.5/5 stars.