Play with small balls
By Ahchay

The 360 has been a bit underwhelming on the games front so far hasn’t it? Burnout, Elder Scrolls, PGR, Ridge Racer, Ghost Recon, DOA... Prettier f’sure, but very much a case of ‘new box, same as the old box’

Old Box, New Box, what's the difference?

Enter Table Tennis.

Now this is an odd game. Stripped of all the trappings that you might associate with 21st century videogaming - no complicated and unnecessary ‘story’ mode, no training, no career progression, no power-ups and only the very slightest amount of avatar customisation (there’s no tedious tweaking of eyebrows here). Rockstar have reined all the excesses in and concentrated and focused and trimmed and snipped until all that is left is what it says on the box - Table Tennis.

And it is a revelation.

Remember all those arguments about whether graphics are more important than gameplay, or whether real-world physics are really necessary in videogames, about cheating AI? This game doesn’t even listen to them. It just sits there, like that bloke out of Kung Fu, waits for a lull in the conversation and says ‘Watch’

By focusing the considerable might of the 360, and of their talents, not on rendering yet another sprawling urban landscape or generic fantasy world numbers 34 to 49, but on a single room, a few slabs of wood and rubber and a small handful of characters, Rockstar San Diego have shown us exactly what all the fuss is about.

This staring competition is anyones

Characters position themselves around the table, their eyes look at where they’re going to place their shot, their grip adjusts according to the shot they’re going to attempt, they wince when you slam the ball into their head and sweat darkens their clothes as the game progresses. Trust me, this is a good thing.

And it is a good thing because all of those subtle nuances combine together to make this one of the most beautifully instinctive games I've ever played. You don't really look at the sweat pouring down Luc's forehead, or the position of his eyes, or his stance, or the grip, or the spin - you just look, and feel, and you twitch and you shoot.

It works so well because you are up close and personal - you will find yourself hurling abuse at the screen (‘A rare sign of emotion from the chinaman there’, ‘Take that, you arrogant bastard’, ‘Pick the bones out of that Bitch’ - have all passed my lips in the last week. Frankly, I’m getting a bit worried), you will cheer when you nail a cross table shot at the end of a 40 shot rally, and you will feel crushed when your opponent makes a seemingly impossible lunge to return it. And you will do it all in the space of 30 seconds.

As with so much else of this game, the relative lack of characters works for the experience rather than against it. Each character is notably different, requires different tactics to play as (or against) and each of them has more personality (clichéd, borderline racist and derivative as that may be) than most ‘real’ sports stars. I’d much rather have Liu Ping’s inscrutable gaze staring out of my screen than any number of Tigers, Tims or Thierrys...

It nearly loses a star for the lack of doubles play, and single machine one-on-one matches are a little lacklustre for that matter. It does rely on Live, more or less completely, for its multi-player kicks - in truth, if you don’t have access to Live, then your enjoyment may be short-lived. But other than that, this is as good a tennis game (table or otherwise) as has ever been committed to shiny silver disk.

This lad is sweating profusely due to the relentless pace

Table Tennis is an unashamedly simple, and perfectly executed, game. Worth buying a 360 for? Maybe not, but an essential purchase for those of you already swimming in next-generation waters..

June 2006

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