Rockstar, a developer well known for contriversially violent titles surprised everyone when they released the budget title Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis for the Xbox 360, even more so when it was actually a fun game.
Now they're tweaking things to take advantage of the Nintendo Wii's motion sensing controllers. Kreese takes an advanced look to find out how things are progressing, read on for all the details.
Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis (Wii)
Tuesday 09 Oct 2007, Preview by kreese
Rockstar Table Tennis on a controller was still one of the most playable and sweet games to come out on next gen platforms. Not an easy ask when you consider really its just Pong in three dimensions.
If there was one fault you could level at the game, it was that rallies could go on quite an extended period of time; the CPU and you, or even you vs a mate were usually a recipe for long, long rallies and lengthy matches.
It's hard to get away from that when you have a standard controller. But what if you had a different kind of controller. One that perhaps allowed you to swing instead of press. Man - that would be something, wouldn't it?
Well funnily enough, with Wii Table Tennis, that's exactly what you've got. Swing the wiimote, and you swing the bat. A match made in heaven? It may just be so. So when the Rockstar boys offered us a look at how the game is shaping up, we grabbed the opportunity faster than Kyle Sandilands clearing his plate at an all you can eat buffet.
This
is the same Rockstar Table Tennis as the previous, with the exception of lower resolution visuals - noticeable at first, but when you play you'll quickly disregard, and of course the control.
The way you play the game is dictated by the difficulty level. You've got three levels of "difficulty" here. There's
Easy, where you don't need the nunchuk. You just have to swing at the right time, and use the D-pad for spin. Within a minute just about anyone can be bopping back and forth.
Sharpshooter ups the stakes. You use the nunchuk to control ball placement on the table, spin remains on the D-pad. This is probably the best compromise for goofy punters lacking in the requisite co-ordination (a category including yours truly).
For the cream of the crop, however,
Control Freak is the go. The nunchuk controls your players physical positioning around the table. The Rockstar guys play on this setting because they're obviously gifted. Master it and you'll attain a level of finesse and precision on par with your mate down the road who's played the game on her Xbox 360.
You don't have to be Einstein to figure out there's a distinct difference between this and your average port flushed out months after the original. The Wii's control scheme
makes this worth holding out for. However if one niggle can be levelled at the current build, its that your swing has to take place
ahead of the ball's path. So you swing, then see the result a beat after. Like the standard controller version of the game, you need to input your swing well in advance. It's especially noticeable when you have a motion based controller. You get used to it very quickly, but it also can't help make you wonder how awesome a Table Tennis game would be where every single, twist, cut and flick of the wrist is faithfully replicated on screen. Rather than holding buttons, your action and pace with the controller would dictate the level of spin. Then again, even assuming the Wiimote is capable of such subtlety, there's no guarantee such a game would be playable really.
Rockstar Table Tennis is shaping up to be one of those games on Wii that any gamer worth their salt makes a point of checking out. Multiplayer action on this game is fulfilling on a level most normal games can't really attain - a combo of knowing that you're not just pushing buttons but relying on pure timing and skill. It's a subtle difference in theory, but one in practice makes all the difference.
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