Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis
May 29,2006 - When most people think of Rockstar Games, they usually think of the Grand Theft Auto series. That’s not all that the company has done though. The Midnight Club series has been a solid Street Racing franchise for years now. Now Rockstar brings us the totally non-violent Table Tennis, which comes in at a nice budget price as well. Table Tennis games haven’t been all that common here in North America. It seems like an odd choice of genre for Rockstar to try to tap, but it’s one that they’ve managed to do extremely well.

Table Tennis at a professional level is all about frantic rallies for a single point. It’s about lunging for that ball that seems just out of reach. It’s about coming from a large point deficit to take the final game of a match. Rockstar’s Table Tennis does a fantastic job of capturing all of this. Table Tennis is a very easy game to pick up and start playing, but it’s very difficult to master its subtle nuances. What Rockstar has created here is a game that is very easy to start playing, and very difficult to tear yourself away from.

What sets Table Tennis apart from a typical game of Tennis is its pacing. Tennis has a very large play surface, so players have a lot of ground to cover. Table Tennis has a smaller play surface, and a ball that can move much faster. A Tennis player might have to chase down a ball over several yards, whereas a Table Tennis player only has a few feet to cover. It’s this smaller scale and faster pace that gives Table Tennis its appeal. While a Table Tennis player might only have a few feet to cover to return the ball, they may only have a split second to get there.

Rockstar has managed to put all of these elements into a smoothly playing and engaging game. The first thing they did was made the controls very simple. It only takes a run through the game’s training mode and you’ve already got a good idea of how the game is played. They’ve also taken into account the concept of CounterSpin. Returning the ball with the same type of spin that was applied to it will result in the changing direction sharply. In order to figure out what sort of spin the ball has on it, the ball has a colored halo around it which represents the color of one of the controller’s face buttons. Finally there’s the Focus Shot. As you successfully return the ball with powerful shots you’ll build up a focus meter. While you have meter you can tap into it to give your return an extra bit of spin. Eventually the meter will fill and you’ll be gives a period of Full Focus, where all of your shots are augmented with Focus attributes.

You can play the game alone against the AI, and this is a fine way to play it if you don’t have Xbox Live or any friends around. The AI is competent enough to provide a decent challenge. Playing with other people, though, is where this game is at its finest. You can play against a friend on the same Xbox 360, or go online and play over Xbox Live. The online play offers exhibition and tournaments, as well as full leaderboard support. Online performance was good overall, though when the connection between two players isn’t as good as it could be there is some definite button lag present. Overall though, the online mode is solid.

Where the game falters somewhat is in its choice of game modes. There really isn’t all that much to choose from. The offline mode has a set of four tournaments with different difficulty levels as well as an Exhibition mode for one or two players as well as a Training Mode. There is no Career Mode, there is no Create A Player Mode. All you get is a total of nine playable characters, and most of them are locked at the start of the game. Each character does have many unlockables to collect, and there is a full 1000 Gamerpoints up for grabs for those who play for points.

From a presentation standpoint, the game does an admirable job of conveying the feel of professional Table Tennis. This is most notable on the character models. At first glance they look great. There are nice touches like the clothes they wear have a natural look to them. They don’t look like pasted on textures. It’s not just how the characters look on the surface that gives Table Tennis its style. Each character has a unique way of moving and animations that reflect their own personality.

They say that audio is 75% of the overall experience. Table Tennis does a very good job here. First and foremost, the sound effects are excellent. There are different sounds for different table surfaces as well as different sounds for how hard a ball is hit. The arena ambience is also very well done. The crowd reacts to make or break plays, or will boo or cheer a given player. If it stopped there, it would be a solid package, but it doesn’t. There are subtle details in the sound like the stumbling around of a player that’s just missed a lunging shot, or the sound of the ball as it hits a back wall after that missed shot. The music is interesting in that it’s not something that would seem appropriate for a game like this. The first few returns in a rally are done in silence, then as the play starts to heat up the beat kicks in. If the music isn’t appealing, you can always turn it off in the options, or use the 360’s custom soundtracks to supply your own.

Table Tennis manages to be easy to pick up and play and extremely addicting at the same time. Though it might be lacking in game modes, what is there is done so well that it will keep you playing despite the lack of a drawn out Career Mode. It is great fun with friends or online, and it’s coming in at a budget price. Rockstar has a great little gem on their hands with this.

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