Well, it’s the end of our week focused on Social Networking apps – and we’ll certainly revisit this category again soon. And given that we try to feature games on Fridays, we wanted to pick one that at least has some relationship to the theme … So, we couldn’t help ourselves, we chose “Whack a Friend”, which let’s you do so much more than just “poke” your friends. Check it out.

Having a tough day at the office? Need a quick break that will let you get out your frustrations – without resulting in an arrest warrant? Then take a look at “Whack a Friend“!

Netherlands-based Mobilefunk, the makers of Whack a Friend are really on to something here. Drawing inspiration from the carnival game classic, Whack a Friend is all about whacking everything (moles, first and foremost) that pop out of one of the nine holes on your screen. The twist here: You can insert photos of people from your phone’s gallery as a target for whacking!

Every time you hit a mole – or your friend – the combo-meter fills up, which will earn you more points for a better high score. There are two different difficulty levels, try to beat the high score on both!

Here’s the nitty gritty:

Graphics
Good, clean graphics. Very simple, but in this case the simplicity works perfectly.

Game play
One word to describe this game… FUN! Seriously, this game is so simple yet so gratifying at the same time. There are two game modes: ‘Normal Game’ and ‘Pick a Photo’ play. Choosing ‘Normal Game’ starts the regular game mode where various moles come up for you to whack! Choosing ‘Pick a Photo’ allows you to embed any one photo of a person from your mobile device into the actual game. You choose a face from the image selected, crop it to the proper size, and then it is superimposed into the game itself. Make sure you hit these custom targets, as they earn double points per whack!

Music/Sound FX
I was disappointed to discover that there are neither Music tracks nor Sound FX in Whack a Friend. I expected to at least hear a solid, resounding “Whack” with each solid hit … This is too bad, as it would add a lot more to this offering. After all, if you’re going to whack a friend on top of the head, a resounding “UGH!” sound would be great.

Controls
I have been playing this game on a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic device, and the user interface is fully optimized for touch devices. It is extremely simple to control and navigate through the onscreen menus.

So if you want to take out some frustration by whacking one of your friend’s (or co-worker’s?) faces, this game is for you. It really is clean, wholesome (face-whacking) fun!

This game is available for S60 3rd Edition devices as well as S60 5th Edition devices, such as the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (it also works with the Nokia N97). It costs $1.99 in the Ovi Store, and it can be purchased here.I superimposed myself in the below image. As a result of adding myself to the game, all of my family and friends really want to play – they seem a little too eager, if you ask me … What a blow to my ego.

Also, check out this video demo of the game courtesy of OviGaming.com: