There’s one particular scene in the movie Forrest Gump where Tom Hanks’ titular character plays ping-pong alone, with his opponent being the folded-up half portion of the ping-pong table he’s playing on. Add  in a little “Whack-a-mole” arcade style gameplay and you’d have one way to describe Fling Pong – The Planets, Appstar Games’ (the guys that  brought you Iron Horse) latest game for the iPhone.

The game is pretty simple and I’ll be honest with you by saying that I lifted this from the game’s description on App Store: “bounce a ping-pong ball towards a wall of target holes”. The backdrops for this wall of holes are actual imagery from the Hubble Telescope, and they differ from level to level. You can probably guess what are actually used for holes..planets! Each hit on a planet gives you a certain number of points, and you’ll need to reach a threshold of points before proceeding to the next level.

Fling Pong will have you playing against the clock as well and the more time you have left when you completed a level, the more points you’ll get as well. There’s also another incentive for finishing levels quickly, fast players will be able to access Free Shot Rockets, a power-up which when activate will always allow you to hit a particular planet of your choosing. As a challenge players will face moving planets instead of stationary targets in the later levels.

Sounds like fun? Indeed it is as you are not limited to one ping-pong ball at a time. The game’s multi-touch abilities and lack of penalties allow you to deploy as many ping-pong balls as you can muster. The sound that is generated from all this ruckus will make bystanders think that you are playing with some kind of iSlotMachine game, but trust me, things get crazy hectic as you move through the levels.

As with other games, Fling Pong comes with OpenFeint, making sure that you would not miss out on bragging about your high score on online leaderboards, not to mention achievements as well. I find the game to be an excellent casual game on the iPhone, with nice graphics and a unique gameplay mechanic that I’ve not seen anywhere else. Check it out over at the App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fling-pong-the-planets/id381980243?mt=8