Okay let's dispense with the foreplay and get to the point. While it's fine and dandy owning one, the main reason if you're a guy to play with Nintendo's Wii has been to attract chicks. Girls - real ones, not sweaty middle aged guys pretending to be Allura the Night Elf in World of Warcraft - seem to have a magnetic fascination to Nintendo's box of comparatively underpowered silicon, as opposed to fawning over the monolith e-phalli that are the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

In this context, the tendency for Wii games to look a little "last generation" and be light in the longevity department becomes an asset. You don't want to be explaining to the potential new Mrs You about normal maps and polygons, and just as like she doesn't want you to either. And even if you do want to spend all night playing videogames, she most likely has some outlandish scheme involving dancefloors, friends and the consumption of loads of intoxicating substances, which more then likely means you're not going to have long.

So with this in mind, consider the ramifications of picking up Rockstar's Table Tennis on Wii. There are plenty of upsides. For starters, it looks okay. Alright, so maybe mentioning good graphics and Nintendo's console go about as well together as stingrays and Steve Irwin, however given current offerings it manages a reasonably accurate, if low res and blurry facsimile of its big brother on Xbox 360. Second, it uses the Wiimote to allow you to swing the bat on screen. Any game that allows you to accidentally strike your older siblings with a plastic object can't be all that bad. Finally, it hasn't got support for online play, which means instead of spending your time volleying the ball across the screen and screaming with nobody in the room, you're compelled to play the game with real life people in the vicinity. Okay, so this one is a dubious call, but work with me here, I'm trying to be positive.

Swinging the Wiimote seems like an elegant and simple solution to preventing this port from looking like a poor cousin to the Xbox 360 version, which not only looked terrific, but managed to be massive fun to boot. Obviously the kinetic factor is a huge boost, so Rockstar would have bent their will to ensuring it was as excellent, maybe even as realistic as possible, while being major fun.

Well, one out of two isn't bad. Rockstar Table Tennis does deliver on the "F" word part, but if you're hoping your "A" pingpong game will result in Wii-domination, think again. Why? Well for starters, because this is a videogame and not the real thing. If it was the real thing the table would be tilted 10 degrees off, there'd be watermarks on the table from where people had left their drinks and you'd be surrounded by drunken English backpackers insisting they're next. And the other reason your real world skills won't compute is because Rockstar has shoehorned in the control scheme to fit with the game, rather than reverse engineer the game to accommodate the Wiimote's potential.

Let me explain. As prefaced in our preview, when you swing the bat in Rockstar Table Tennis, you're actually buffering the swing in advance. Wait until the ball is in the right position for you to hit it, and it's too late. This is kind of like playing a first person shooter with a hell of a lot of lag, only less frustrating once you get the hang of it. However wouldn't it have been more fun to have your bat position and angle and swing be mirrored on screen? Of course it would have been, however this would have necessitated an almost entire rebuild of the game engine to accommodate it. In essence, Wii owners have a game experience heavily influenced by the shortcomings of the Xbox 360 controller. While selecting your shot well in advance and "charging up" its spin works a treat on Xbox 360 in its efforts to emulate the effect of swinging a bat, it's a waste of time having to follow the same approach when you have a gesture based controller.

The game offers three control modes. To recap the preview, there's the basic mode, which involves no nunchuck attachment, just you swinging a bat and pressing buttons. It's simple, everyone will know how to do it, and player movement is taken care of for you. Then there's Sharpshooter, which uses the nunchuck to control ball placement. A little more tactical, and the mode we think most punters will gravitate to the most. Then if you're masochistic, there's Control Freak, which entails your use of the nunchuck and moving the player around as well. Sounds good in theory, but in practice it's got a learning curve roughly resembling Empire State Building.

I'd gladly swap Control Freak for an option to be able to move the bat in real time. If I cut sharply down with the controller, I put backspin on the ball. If I twist the controller hard as I hit the ball, it applies a corresponding level of sidespin. And if I roll the controller forward, it applies topspin. Couple that with a natural swinging motion and not only do you have a recipe for trips to the emergency room as siblings lose eyes and nearby sharp objects get smashed, but it also has the makings of an excellent control scheme.

Anyway, this is pure wishful thinking. The reality is that Rockstar Table Tennis on Wii - misgivings on how great it could have been aside - is still my pick for the best option if you're not the type to soil your pants over online play. Why? Because it's fun. Table Tennis on Xbox 360 is fun too, but very quickly it degenerates into a glazed eye button popping fest as rallies extend into triple digits. Here, sheer fatigue, lack of concentration or getting accidentally hit by your opponent will stop you earlier. You'll forget about the mushy visuals soon enough when you get into the swing of things, so that's neither here nor there. Don't worry you'll keep coming back for more - it's just your session times will be briefer. Not at all a bad thing with summer approaching and the Missus champing at the bit to get her dance on.