E3 06: Table Tennis Hands-On
It seemed like an unlikely move at the time of its announcement, but sure enough, Rockstar's San Diego studio has just about completed work on Table Tennis, a pretty slick-looking, fast-paced ping pong game with easy-to-understand gameplay and online support.
The game will contain 11 playable characters, four of whom are female. But many of those players will be locked at start, along with outfits and other stuff. The game has a tournament mode as well as exhibition matches. Much like your basic tennis game, you have your choice of different shots as you attempt to score a point. Each of the face buttons corresponds to a different shot, letting you hit shots with top spin, back spin, and spins to either side. You can also hit the left trigger to hit a drop shot, which is handy if your opponent is playing back from the table. Much like Top Spin 2, how long you hold down the shot button determines the quality of your shot. You can also charge up a meter that lets you hit focus shots, which are harder to return.
The other key point about Table Tennis is its graphics. The game has really sharp player models and the animation is really good. On top of that, since it's table tennis and not, you know, regular tennis, this is a pretty fast-moving, hectic game. While the offline portion of the game appears to be complete, it sounds like the last tweaks are going into the online mode.
Rockstar's Table Tennis is set to ship near the end of this month at a discount price of $39.99. We'll have a full review near its release.
