Rockstar+ping pong=best sports game of the year. Read more for an in-depth review.
Before I go on any further, I will describe the sport to you. Table tennis (a.k.a. ping pong) is a lot like a smaller and speedier version of tennis. You have the same rules of tennis with the winning point number at 11. That's about the only difference that you will find.
While the rules are like the classic Pong, Rockstar actually takes the fullest advantage of the Xbox 360's processing power, which is a major leap for Rockstar. When you first get into a match, the game shows close-up views of the players. This is a great thing because the character models are gorgeous. No longer do you have the blocky graphics of GTA or Manhunt. Now you have highly detailed characters, seamless animations, and pixel-perfect lighting that surpass even the mighty NBA 2K6 and Madden NFL 06. When the ball is speeding toward you with great force, you actually see your player trying to recover. If you're in the middle of a heated match, you actually see the players swaying faster than they were in the beginning. Every character looks, reels, and reacts to how the game is going. It's too bad that the environments don't look just as good. Basically, they look good, but you probably won't get the same reaction to the environments as you will the character models. Overall, though, they still look like a next-gen game should.
The sound is pretty good, too, if not mindblowing. You have the sounds of the ball being hit and the arena-style echo in the background from the announcer. The music also has a great vibe going as well. When you first start up the game, you hear the classic Rockstar music that you are used to hearing. The big problem with the sound is that there is no ACTUAL commentary. The only thing that you get is the announcer telling the score and the cheering of the crowds either chanting your name or your opponent's name. Maybe they will add full commentary in the next Table Tennis game, but it is such a HUGE dissapointment after playing the EA and 2K Sports games.
But with that said, looks and sound does nothing if you don't bring your A-game. This is where Table Tennis succeeds over other first-attempt sports games in this generation. The controls are very simple to pick up. Each face button represents a serve, whether it's a forehand, backhand, lefthand, or righthand serve. The score would probably be a 5 or 6 if that was all you could do, but don't count this game out just yet. When you charge up the meter on the upper-lefthand corner, you can hold the right bumper down to use a focus shot which, when used, slows the match down and helps you hit an extremely fast ball. This may sound gimmicky at first, but it actually becomes necessary on harder difficulties. When you hold the left bumper down, you can perform a soft shot. When the ball goes up in the air, you can hold any of the face buttons down and perform a charge shot. There is a lot more to tell you, but I will leave you to find those secrets. When you play against the computer, it's pretty simple, but playing someone on Xbox Live is the real draw.
That's not to say there aren't any problems with this game. When you are on Xbox Live, there are some noticeable frame rate bogs, but these are very minor problems that don't harm the actual game that much. Plus, those dips are few and far between. Really, the only REAL problem that I found was the huge lack of modes. There are no Franchise, Create-a-Character, Doubles, or Superstar modes in the game; just Tournament, Exibition, Training, and Xbox Live modes.
Now, obviously the Xbox 360 isn't the best console to create a ping pong game on, what with the advanced technology of the next-gen console and the simplicity of the sport. But thanks to the effort that Rockstar put into the game instead of just finding a control scheme that mostly works and shoving it out the door, Table Tennis could very well be the next great sports game since Madden. If you have any doubts about the gameplay, cast them aside now. This could be the most fun you ever had with a ping pong ball since Pong and simply the best sports game of the year.