Sue Zann Toh

I thought it was a little strange that Rockstar, the makers of horrendously violent yet very, very fun video games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, is releasing a family friend, sports simulation game like Table Tennis. You’d expect some other company like EA or maybe even Activision to make a table tennis video game. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with Rockstar releasing a “family friendly” video game, it’s just unexpected, but very welcome!

I have to admit, I’m the last person who thought Table Tennis could be fun on a video game console, I was a skeptic. I couldn’t grasp how they could make table tennis playable on the Xbox 360. If you’ve ever played real life table tennis, you’d know how fast the game can be. I didn’t think that any game developer could capture the fast paced yet technical nature of table tennis. And yet, since playing the demo, I’ve found it to be surprising fun and quite addictive.

The Rockstar’s Table Tennis demo I played was downloaded from the Xbox Live Marketplace. It’s one of those demos that’s a must-download for everyone. Trust me, you won’t regret it. It’s instantly playable and instantly fun.

The demo gives you the choice of one- and two- player modes, but sadly, no online gaming. The two characters available are Liu Ping (Chinese) and Mark (African American).

Rockstar’s Table Tennis reminds me much of Tony Hawk’s original Pro Skater in the sense that even though I’m not a skater, and I’m not a fan of skating, the game was instantly playable and heaps of fun from the get-go.

Graphics are good. Realistic looking people made more realistic by their movements and mannerisms. Each of the two characters you’re presented with in the demo have their own mannerisms and different strengths and playing styles.

The display of the ball spin is quite intuitive. Ball spin can be top-spin, back-spin, left-spin and right-spin and each of the spins are represented by spinning coloured blobs around the ball.

The sound design is very effective. The music wasn’t irritating. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was when a rally started getting into the double digits, exciting music would start to fade up. Other sound effects were very simple, effective and rather cute. Option selection sound effects were just a ping pong ball bouncing on a paddle or on the table. The crowd cheers also added to the game with applause in the appropriate moments and random people yelling out support for the players.

The full version of the game will have 11 characters, 19 venues and various gameplay modes to choose from.

Official Rockstar Table Tennis Website

Where to get it

• Buy it at Play-Asia.com
• Bid on it at eBay.com.au (aff link)