SPOTLIGHTm

Peeing contest in a box

Punch-o-Meter for iPhone

What is it?

Punch-o-Meter is a Nintendo Wii-like game where the phone’s accelerometer is used to measure and assign points to the speed, strength, and trajectory of one’s punch. Essentially, it’s an iPhone peeing contest where people punch the air with their cell phones in their hands to try and outman the next guy playing.

How much does it cost?

$.99

Who is it good for?

The Wii fit crowd. People with aggression. People who have a weird habit of airboxing for no reason or fake punching their friends. Extremely competitive, somewhat athletic people. People who just found $.99 on the ground.

Summary

Considering that this application does one thing - measures the speed and trajectory of your punches - $.99 feels kind of expensive, especially when the same game is free on Android. Seeing as we already got a pretty high score within two tries (105), it doesn’t really feel like we have to use the application for all that much else. Sure, you pass your phone around to your friends at a party, but you’re guaranteed to see your phone fly across the room within a few tries, not to mention the “Wii shoulder” injury that everyone will get. This is a novelty game that is like a fight - fun for the first few punches, then stops being fun after that.

Keep it or Delete it?

Delete it. (but obviously, keep it if you already paid for it, otherwise, save $.99 and use a friend’s)

If you’re already prone to dropping your iPhone, Punch-o-Meter is not going to help anything. Now, instead of dropping the phone, you’ll violently throw it across the room, with only yourself to blame.

Instead of throwing over-the-top haymakers, Punch-o-Meter rewards you for solid, straight punches with some “Mmmph” in them. Overall, it’s pretty accurate at judging our manhood here at SpotlightM and we experienced just a couple misreads when we delivered a huge knuckle sandwich to the imaginary person standing in front of us, only to get less than 10 points, which made us cry as we agonized in pain holding our shoulder.

Something interesting about the game is that you’re not really able to trick the application like you often can with Nintendo Wii because of the accelerometer. On Wii, many of us have learned that the quick flick of the wrist is oftentimes more effective than the full wind-up in Wii Sports - this is not the case with Punch-O-Meter.

This is the kind of game where you actually have to try - the kind of game where you accidentally fart in front of a room full of hot girls because you’re trying so hard to impress them on a game that actually takes a lot of effort. It’s that kind of game.

So yes, you can email or text your scores to your friends, “challenging” them to see if they can beat your score. But really, is a few punches with some point validation worth your $.99? If you’re an angry person, or like to casual game in big open spaces, maybe. But for most with non-violent friends, we can’t see you using or demoing this application enough to make it any more valuable than $.01/punch.