Table Tennis (Xbox 360) Quick Review
Rockstar Table Tennis
Well, let's be frank right off the bat. When you hear the name Rockstar in video games, I bet I can predict the first few things that come to mind : Grand Theft Auto, Max Payne, LA Noire, Manhunt...just to name a few. And these all have some similarities. Guns, blood, swearing. So, it's a bit of a shock that the company behind these games would bring us...ping pong. But they did.
What's most shocking isn't just the fact that they made and released this game. It's actually pretty damn good. You take control of one out of almost a dozen characters, and from there you really only have two options. Play Exhibition matches, either against the Computer AI, or play through the short career mode of tournaments.
Exhibitions are pretty self explanatory, just grab a character, choose your opponent and the location, then you're all set to go. Each character has up to five colored uniforms you can choose from, all of which have their own specific conditions to unlock. These unlocks are actually pretty fun, as they require more than just "Beat opponent X" or "Win a Tournament". To unlock some outfits you'll need to get a game point with a specific spin-shot, or get an Ace on a serve.
Tournaments are your chance to take on the world. There's four levels of tournaments; Amateur, Rookie, Pro, and All-Star. Here, you'll face the entire rank of ping pong stars in increasing steps of difficulty. The tournaments will also get longer too, with Amateur only having one bracket, Rookie having two, and Pro/All-Star each having three.
The difficulty levels will definitely play a huge factor in how easy or hard this game is for you. The early tournaments are mostly a cakewalk, but once you hit the Pro Circuit you'll start to get challenged a bit. All-star even more so.
To be the best, you'll the Table Tennis's most important feature, it's Focus Meter. Near your character name, a small empty bar will be present. As your opponent hits the ball, you can hold one of the spin buttons to begin charging a shot. If you successfully land this hit, you'll gain that much in the focus meter (it slowly builds as you're holding). Once it's full, it'll automatically trigger Full Focus mode which gives you heightened senses essentially. You'll react faster, move a little quicker, hit harder, and be able to land more precisely on the open spots of the table. What's even better though is you don't need to wait for the bar to fill all the way up. You can activate focus on a specific shot by holding the right bumper as you hit your spin button.
Put all this together, wrap it up and master it, and you just might become the worlds greatest ping pong master.
Exhibitions are pretty self explanatory, just grab a character, choose your opponent and the location, then you're all set to go. Each character has up to five colored uniforms you can choose from, all of which have their own specific conditions to unlock. These unlocks are actually pretty fun, as they require more than just "Beat opponent X" or "Win a Tournament". To unlock some outfits you'll need to get a game point with a specific spin-shot, or get an Ace on a serve.
The difficulty levels will definitely play a huge factor in how easy or hard this game is for you. The early tournaments are mostly a cakewalk, but once you hit the Pro Circuit you'll start to get challenged a bit. All-star even more so.
To be the best, you'll the Table Tennis's most important feature, it's Focus Meter. Near your character name, a small empty bar will be present. As your opponent hits the ball, you can hold one of the spin buttons to begin charging a shot. If you successfully land this hit, you'll gain that much in the focus meter (it slowly builds as you're holding). Once it's full, it'll automatically trigger Full Focus mode which gives you heightened senses essentially. You'll react faster, move a little quicker, hit harder, and be able to land more precisely on the open spots of the table. What's even better though is you don't need to wait for the bar to fill all the way up. You can activate focus on a specific shot by holding the right bumper as you hit your spin button.
Put all this together, wrap it up and master it, and you just might become the worlds greatest ping pong master.
What's Good?
Vibration Response - As you hold the spin button for one of your shots, you can aim with the left stick. If the controller begins to vibrate it means your aim is getting close to the edge of the table. The more intense the vibration, the closer you are and more you risk completely missing the table. It's a nice way to give you a last ditch effort to pull back on your shot just a little bit and hopefully save it.
Focus Shots - Not only are these a great way at increasing your chance of getting past your opponent, but the camera angles for a lot of these are really incredible. Things will transition into slow motion, and the shot will zoom in on the ball letting you watch every frame with your fingers crossed hoping this is the one that you'll score on.
What's Bad?
Wonky Controls...Sometimes - It's hard to fault this one really because the majority of the time this game handles like a breeze. But...at others...well, you'll be wondering just what's going on. I lost many points due to charging a shot and aiming at the right side of the table, only to have my player abandon the charge and just start strolling to the right casually. Other times you'll swear you hit the button, only for the ball to smack your player in the face. It's not consistent, and it's not often, but it can be quite infuriating when it happens especially at the higher levels.
Is it Worth it?
Table Tennis is a big step out of the norm for Rockstar. It definitely turned some heads when this was announced as a project of theirs. Funnily enough though, its amazing. The fact that you can buy this for under $5 just makes it that much more amazing. It's fun, it's fast paced, and it certainly has a metric ton of replayability. You can also find it on the Nintendo Wii. In short : yes. This game is more than worth it at it's value, and if you see it you should strongly consider picking it up.
