Thank you Playin Games for sending us a review code and a loaner Meta Quest 3 headset!

Pickleball was invented in 1965 by three dads looking for a way to entertain their kids during their summer break. Since then, the equipment has been standardized and the sport has been gaining in popularity and is even played internationally. Pickleball courts are even appearing in Asia and Europe.

If you’re new to Pickleball, Pickleball One has a Training and Fitness mode, where you can sharpen your skills when it comes to doing serves and volleys. You can work on your freestyle, drive, lob, and spin serves. For volleys you can work on perfecting your dink, volley, and overhead shots to make sure they land where they are supposed to. When you chose your training mode you can select between 10, 20, 50, and a custom amount of balls to hit. Afterwards you’ll be shown your accuracy with how many you were able to hit where you were supposed to.

There is a Fitness mode where you can select a song based on its length (typically 5 minutes) and intensity. You’ll get to work on your dinks, smashes, and side to side movement. Mixed Reality mode is an option if you want your environment blended in with the game. Although the concept is good, when I tried this mode in Mixed Reality the height was off and I had to bend really low to hit the balls the drones were shooting at me. If I was four feet tall I would have done better. Thankfully, the other modes didn’t have height issues.

Online Multiplayer is available but I did not see any matches to join, at least not in the evenings. If you are able to get friends together, you can play alongside three other people. AI can step in if you’re short a player or two. The AI difficulty can be set to easy, medium, or hard.

Even without Multiplayer, there’s plenty to do in the Single Player area. If you’re new to Pickleball or Pickleball One I highly recommend checking out the Practice mode to familiarize yourself with the controls. In all honesty, I found the paddle positioning awkward, which made backhanded returns needlessly difficult.. There’s a realistic adapter available, but I haven’t tried it. Playing against the ball machine is a good way to learn how to return serves and to hit the balls from different angles.

Once you’re familiar with the controls, it’s time for an AI battle where you can play singles (2 player) or doubles (four players). You can play casually to see how long of a streak you can maintain or setup a friendly match. You can specify the number of matches and points (11, 15, 21) needed to declare victory.

As you play Pickleball One you’ll earn experience which will level up your character profile. While there’s a fair amount of customizable balls, paddles, and courts to use, more can be unlocked by leveling up, taking surveys our outright buying them for a penny.

The graphics are colorful and simple. There are some neat looking courts that take place in Egypt and other locales. I find it humorous that the players don’t have any legs. You’re just playing against floating torsos.

I like how you have different methods of movement available. I left the default method of automatically running to the ball. You can optionally teleport or use the controller joysticks to move around. I didn’t experience any motion sickness, but others might.

Overall, Pickleball One is a family-friendly game that can be enjoyed by aspiring pickleball players of all ages. It’s a bummer that the controls are a little awkward and that the online community is lacking. That said, there's still a lot of fun if you're willing to part with $20.