There's a lot to discuss about Rockstar Table Tennis, and most of it ends up outside the realm of the game itself. For instance, here we have a game on a brand new generation of hardware promising unsurpassed game play experience, and we're playing Pong (and enjoying it). It's a family friendly game financed by thousands of dead hookers and fire truck runs in Grand Theft Auto. It's also Ping Pong.
Yet, beating every odd out there, Rockstar's Table Tennis is a definite success story. It offers the simplicity on the surface for casual fans to come in and leave quickly without missing anything, while dedicated players can spend hours manipulating the spin of the ball to find various ways to drive one past their opponents. It somehow finds a successful blend where countless other titles have failed miserably.
Mechanics of the game couldn't be simpler. All four buttons perform a different type of shot, while the bumpers and triggers can modify them. The rumble feature lets you know if you'll be hitting too close to the edge of the table, eliminating the need for icons or cluttered HUD. The training is compact and ensures you know every basic move in the game. That sets the player up for a disappointingly slim set of single player options that feel more like basic practice before getting sucked into the addictiveness of online play.
Technique is critical if you ever plan on playing competitive. You'll need to learn some complicated maneuvers before you even have a chance at competing at the highest ranked tournaments. AI isn't exactly up to par, and though it doesn't always seem true, it can occasionally be remarkably easily to stage the world's greatest comeback. The AI opponent goes on a frenzy of stupidly botched shots. While you'll rarely argue about coming back from a 9-0 deficit, it's hard to feel like you've accomplished something when you know in the back of your mind it would have been almost impossible to lose.
While tournaments, unlockable shirts, new characters, and arenas all sound nice, there's something missing here. After a few hours of play, you'll realized how big that "something" has grown to be. Lacking a create-a-character mode, it's hard to feel involved in the solo experience. There's no way to increase stats or buy new equipment (though it is hard to imagine what you'd buy exactly), and each tournament is its own. There's little sense of progression, and for the most part, you're only playing to unlock things for use online.
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