Table Tennis (Xbox 360)

Sound

One word here: atmosphere. That’s how I would sum up the use of sound in the game, from the various player sounds and growls/grunts/groans and shouts as they dance back and forth delivering rubber-clad smack-downs to the little white ball to the ambience of the stadiums themselves, replete with the whistles and encouragement from the crowd, it’s all here and it’s all rendered in gloriously done audio.

During one match we were playing against Jesper (poor Jesper) we heard the crowd chanting out our player’s name, this really drove us to try and win as they continued to provide support. It’s little touches like these that really make the game shine for me and make it rise above the others of its type.

The music is fairly decent and minimal so it has been placed here under sound.

The voice work in the game is well done, it’s low key and subtle with the exception being the shouts from the crowd. The commentary is excellent and provides just the right level of detail without sounding stilted or overdone.


Multiplayer

Matches are two players only, both off and online. There’s no four player doubles because Rockstar have rightly said, it would be insane and tricky to implement. While we can cry and moan about it all we like what we do have is robust and solid game play experience that delivers what it says on the tin.

Over LIVE there’s much heckling and trash-talking over the headsets and the game is usually fairly stable, even if some of the animations can go a little awry due to server problems the actual game isn’t affected and you can still play a very good match. These are minor niggles and they are sure to be solved as time passes, Rockstar being a company that like to fix their issues as soon as possible.

Offline matches are best described as tense affairs between friends, some of these can turn into rivalries as even the best buddies transform into trash-talking table tennis aficionados at the tap of a button.

Over the net

This game is a solid contender for best sports title ever, it’s probably the single most addictive game of its kind on any console and the sheer level of AI sophistication makes you think there’s a human behind that player at times. It’s great fun offline and even more fun online with a plethora of tactics to master and only a few core buttons to learn. If you like your table tennis in a slickly presented, fun to play and easy to learn package that comes at the right price loaded with crisp graphics and excellent, devious AI then you’re mad if you miss out on this game.