Jun 11 2006, 05:52 PM, updated 20y ago
With that disclaimer out of the way, i therefore officially SPLOOGING on how awesome an experience with this seemingly niche and "possible sleeper hit" called Rockstar Presents Table Tennis!
Having seen FNR3 run in realtime myself, i firmly believe that nothing else could surpass its realistic intepretation of how human being can look on a video game.......until RPTT arrives!Sweat-ridden skin, ultra-realistic textures, billowing shirt with accurate physics, emotionally driven facial animation, crazy winning stances! Granted the game is able to produce such hyper-realistic looking players due to the fact that the camera focuses on only both the players, the table, and a little of the surround court, everything else is either in the shadows or not brightly lit to require proper exercising of the XB360 power. But then again, when you play this game, your focus is ON the ball , not its surround.
Aptly enough, you and the ball becomes one. When the action moves this fast, everything else beside you, your reality SHUTS DOWN, and all that matters is where you want to place the ball. 4 face buttons on theXB360 represents the 4 -spins , topspin, backspin, left and righ spins. These corresponds to how you want the ball to behave when you hit it with your paddle. The amount of spin you can apply on the ball depends on how long you charged these buttons before the ball hits your paddle, and the direction is determines by the left analog stick direction you held when you have decided which spin to execute (otherwise, the ball just charges straight forward).To counter a spin, watch the ball, for the spin colors(this corresponds to the colors of the face buttons on your controller), and execute the same spin drive (Higher level plays shows you how to use other spins to counter a an incming spin drive, depending on where you want to place the shot, where you are standing, and how much spin/tap you charged during your spin move). Wrong counterspin will result in your ball flying our of the court, or worse, setting up major pain retaliation from your opponent.
Too much powerplay and your player is locked in power fisticuffs with the opposing player? Surprise him/her with the soft shot, believe me when i say when you're back out of the table to pad your hitting when the travelling balls starts zooming past, and then all of a sudden you had to catch a soft shot, you will FEEL like lunging forward to catch the tip of your paddle on the soft shot ball. AWESOME!
Feel like RALLYING? Not driving , you lump! Pass the ball back and forth between your and your enemy, each and everytime, testing his defenses seeing if there is any break or opening he has not covered. Spin to the side, drive to the corner, soft shot past the net, play acute angle shots....ANYTHING to get him off balanced for you to get him to fumble.....either this results in him leaving wide open spaces uncovered, or the finishing move, the SMASH SHOT.
Even so, a SMASH does not always end in succumbing the opponent. A CLEVER player who had fumbled leaving himself open for a smash, will position himself to the approximate position to take the smash, and deliver a driving shot towards the smashing player himself, turning the tables against him.
The game employs gamepad rumbling to signify that you have placed too much power on your shot, or if your charged shot is angled too far away, to land inside the court, resulting in the ball landing outside the table.Very intuitive, especially when you're too excited during your smash manouver and forget hom much smash charge power you want to input into your smash. Once the controller starts rumbling wildly, either reduce the button hold/charge, or deflect your shot to a safe direction within the court.
You can play this FAST (so fast, i find myself buffering my button presses before the opponent hits his shot, or even right after i blast him with mine), or play this with finesse (spins and counterspins games can be a dizzying experience).
On my way to the last match on the Pro circuit, but that Solayman son of a b1tch is too much for me. Have to practice my Jesper properly to beat this Egyptian b*stard.
Also just had a match with some folks from New Zealand, and here's my report on the online play on Xbox Live. Started off well, with not much of a lag. Remember, this game plays fast, and anything played fast will potentially be ruined if the network isnt fast enough to cope up with the speed of the game. Eventually, we hit a few laggy session, and instead of being frustrated, i burst out laughing!
Why , you ask? Because the ball now is being hit by invisible player (ball hits left, player still on the right side of the court), and sometimes, the ball path travels wildly out of the actual physics of where the ball should land, pretty much a guessing game for both of us. Your player will play fine, with no appearing-disappearing phenomenon we see on laggy game, but not the other player you're connected to. I didnt really mind since i was having a blast playing a real human player, and we both had a blast laughing ourselves silly using our headsets. That game also produced the longest rally in the game too, more than 100+ shots! Crazy sweating, swearing and yelling match! Tried connecting with PSP_Boy , but every session results in failure to connect. I was worried that it might be my connection that is acting up, but everytime this happns, made it a point to sign off and test the connection to xbox Live, everything shows fine with NAT Open.
Those few games with the New Zealanders proves that it is possible to connect (hence not the fault of not being able to connect at all) but not necesarily have the smoothest game session.Final words, i guess this thread will remain empty till you guys get your Table Tennis fix when Rockstar announces this for the Asian region, until then, im off to spin that Solayman SOB into submission. Cheers!
This post has been edited by stringfellow: Jun 11 2006, 06:07 PM
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hmm.. this game is THAT good ar? 
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