Table Tennis for XBOX 360

There is only one game that I will claim to be any good at. Oh, I can play tennis, and squash, and I have even been  known to turn up to (as opposed to play) rugby and cricket. My game of choice is table tennis. I have been known to beat people at that game. And I really, and I mean really, enjoy playing it.

So the XBOX 360 Table Tennis game by Rockstar was of more than passing interest to me. Particularly as it only costs thirty quid. This means of course that I have bought a copy.  And I have spent the last couple of hours playing it.  It is very, very, very, very good. Have I mentioned it is good?

The controls are simple, but you can do a lot with them. You have to watch the other player and the way they hit the ball to work out what it  is going to do.  Where you are standing affects how much you can do. I've found myself taking part in the game in just the same way as I do in the real one.  

The presentation is not particularly impressive, but everything is as it should be. The animation of the players is smooth and I like the way that their clothes flap about. The sound is spot on, you can get a feel for what is going on by the noise the ball makes as it hits the table and the bat.

I've won one tournament and it was fun. I've not quite got the hang of the controls yet, I tend to forget to make my player swing his bat, so that he just stands there like a dummy as the ball whizzes past. But I'm pretty sure that I'll get the hang of things quite soon. I've played a couple of XBOX Live games (lost one won one) and the experience was very smooth.

You can have a lot of fun with a simple bat and a ball. What Rockstar have done is taken that fun and put it into a video game. If you have an XBOX and a liking for ball games you should get this game.