Best table tennis game out there.
Great in game play.
Good achievements to keep you playing.
Player detail is Amazing.
Great crowd sounds in the ping pong arena.
Online play.
Fast paced.
Great rumble feature
The Bad:
No career mode.
There could be more tournaments.
There is no create a player mode.
No multilayer mini games.
No doubles.
Overview:
Rockstar presents table tennis is a surprisingly good game, with its top spin like controls,
Great game play and an easy pick up and play game. Why wouldn't you want to buy it?
Gameplay:
You hit the ball they hit it back, They hit the ball you hit it back how much more simpler could it be?
Well overall the game is how you choose it you can play on 4 different difficulty levels Easy, medium, hard and expert.
Easy and medium being not much of a challenge, Hard is when you will have to start putting your skill to the test and you know when
you have mastered the game if you can beat expert. Overall there isn't a massive increase when you go up a skill level, because it will get harder
each match of each tournament so the difficulty progresses nicely in this game.
Now when it comes to single player I was hoping for a career mode like on top spin where you build up your skill, make your own player and travel
the world playing in table tennis tournaments. So when I saw that there was only 4 tournaments to choose from in single player mode I was a little disappointed.
But never mind the tournaments are still have fun to play. as you progress threw the tournament each tournament you will play more match's in for example...
Easy you play 3 or 4 match's, medium about 6 or 7 match's and so on. But you will not have access to all the tournaments at once you will have to beat hard the tournaments
to unlock the expert tournament. Also in the game menu you can change the length on a match and how many games (in the match) you can play so you can make tournaments match's shorter
or longer. There is also an exhibition mode where you can just have friendly match against a CPU on any difficulty level.
The multilayer in table tennis is pretty basic you can either have a local match with another person in exhibition mode its a shame that you can't play doubles. You can also play on xbox live
You can either just play an exhibition match with someone online or you can play a ranked match when will go towards your stats as you win and loss games you will go up and down the rankings. You can
also host timed tournaments with a number on people online, I have never used that feature because no one seems to play it. So thats about it for multilayer nothing too exciting just the basics for a sport game.
I bought they could have done better by maybe adding in some multilayer mini games or something. Or a doubles's tournament where you could either play online or local.
There is also training mode its pretty basic, There just drills on how to master certain moves passing these will help your overall game play so its worth giving them a go. You also get an achievement if you pass them all
perfectly that might be a little insentive :P.
At the start of the game you have about 4 players to choose from, but as you progress threw (passing tournaments, versing CPU a certain amount of times) you will unlock new players from all different country. The players all
have a skill metered and it will tell you what there best at eg..there good at spinning the ball, applying power to the ball, serving. Overall the player's are all nicely balanced with there skills except one player "Jesper" who is
clearly the fastest hitter of the ball in the whole game and you havent mastered spin and your opponent is Jesper you don't have a good chance of winning, But other then that its a fair game. There are also unlockable's for each player.
Each player has 5 T - shirts to unlock and 1 to 2 table tennis table's. In the game it dose tell you have to unlock each of these items there fairly easy sometimes it could be just win a match with a soft shot or anything like that.
Now lets get to the controls. This is one of the things about the game that impressed me. If you have ever played Top spin or any recent tennis game you will be pleased to know that they are similar and easy to use. Its pretty simple. A
is for a power shot, X and B and spin shots and Y is a lob. You can also use the second analog stick for certain shots UP is a top spin BACK is a back spin and then the 2 sides are just spin hits. You can also mix things up a little, You can press
two buttons at once for a combined shot for example if you press X and A you get a more powerful spin shot, Or you press Y and B you get a spinning lob shot. You can Also use LB and RB for certain shots LB is a drop shot but you have to combined
it with another button to play the shot Same goes with RB Press RB with a selected shot to give you a more powerful shot (Note that you will need your focus meter up a bit to use a power shot and with each use your focus meter will go down). And Thats about
it for the controls.
Graphics:
The Graphics in this game are amazing. The players look so natural when hitting the ball, they move well, And another thing the shirts on the players move so naturally The shirt will move up and down when you hit the ball, move around it just looks great. You will also
notice when you are well into a match you will see sweat patch's on the player's clothes, Sweat dripping down there faces. This game just looks so real.
They they Didn't try and go all out on making this game look colorful with fancy looking ping pong rooms and table's and try and dress up the main menu with all sorts of colors its just a nice natural look which really helps the game in the end.
Thats pretty much it Graphically all you need to know the Graphics in this game are high end for 2006 xbox 360 games.
Sounds: The sounds in this game add a great feel to it. As you walk into the table tennis stadium you will hear the roar of the crowed cheering you on as you get ready to start playing. There is an Umpire who will just say the score, if the ball is out, who is serving, and who wins
the match His voice is pretty boring and can get annoying at some times.
After you win a point you will hear your play scream for joy, whisper something to himself or have a bit of a laugh at your opponent:P.
The sounds of the ball hitting the bat are spot on you can hear the difference between a Smash shot, Drop shot any type of shot, It just adds to the over all experience .
The noises in the menu as you go up and down are ping noises (ball hitting the bat sounds) or as you enter the game it makes a ping pong ball bouncing noise just little effects that add to the overall experience to the game.
The sounds in Rockstar presents table tennis are pretty much what you would expect Nothing to exciting just what you need to hear.
Conclusion: Rockstar table tennis is a great game for anyone interested in table tennis or tennis, Or Evan if your just a sports fan. Im my opinion its fun for almost anyone and since now thats its cheap if you haven't already played it Id say try it out.