[Beaker]

Hier mal ein aktueller englischer Testbericht. Das Spiel soll schon ab Mai erhätlich sein.

IGN: Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis Preview


...ergänzend dazu ein weiterer Bericht aus einem XBOX-Forum.

I played a build of the game about five days ago. They hadn't completed all the facial animations or post-point animations on all the characters... some of them were near complete, but the basic nuts and bolts of the game were available.

Options:
- there are about a dozen stadium-style areas to play in where the crowds cheer you on, stomp their feet in unison, yell out words of support or even say "You Suck!"
- there's about as many "enclosed" areas where aren't any crowds.
- In the areas with crowds, when you start building up a decent multi-hit rally, some background music will start to kick in.
- In the crowdless areas, there's music all the way through.
- There's about half a dozen male and just as many female characters, each with about four different colored shirts to wear.
- No player creation mode
- No doubles mode in this build

Gameplay:
- the four face-buttons represent different directions you can "spin" the ball. The longer you press it the harder the ball curves through the air.
- if you just tap any of the buttons, it's a flat shot.
- there's a meter that you can build up by hitting multiple consecutive shots in a rally. If you struggle for a shot or miss one, the meter goes down.
- When the meter is built up, hold down the right bumper to let fly with a Top Spin-style "risk" shot. ie. you wind the paddle back a little bit further and hit it a lot harder.
- the key to playing this game is placement and preparation, very similar to Top Spin, and the complete opposite of what I'm used to with, say, Virtua Tennis and Super Tennis. Basically, you can pick your spot early and then hit the button. The earlier you "commit" by hitting the button, the better your shot will be, but only as long as you're within striking distance of the ball. If you're standing too far away, you'll end up lunging for it or hitting it badly.
- If you 'just barely' reach for a shot, there's this kind of Matrix-vision camera that seamlessly breaks from the action, shows your player diving for the ball from a different angle, and then zooms back to the top-view without breaking a step in the rally.
- moving the players around is a little clumsy. Like Top Spin, they're kind of hindered by their running animations and don't stand, say, "exactly where you want". You have to rely on committing early to the ball and relying on the animations to pull the shot off - and it usually does.

This game is really, really easy to get into. I can see this will become the kind of game nobody remembers the name of, but EVERYONE has somehow played in the pub or at a party or something. Everyone in my office already calls it "that ping pong game". Absolutely love it.