Ping Pong, anyone?
I never thought that one of the 360’s prime sports games would be the simulation of an activity I spent my youth partaking in: ping pong. Yet, Rockstar, the rebel studio behind the Grand Theft Auto series, has given us Table Tennis, one of the most intriguing and original sports simulations released in years. Whether or not Rockstar has succeeded in harnessing the fun and depth of real life table tennis is the question worth discovering.

Somewhere, Forrest Gump is smiling
“Innovative” is the key word I would use when describing Table Tennis. As far as I know, this is the only ping pong game ever sold to the mainstream gaming audience other than the classic Pong—if you consider Pong to be a dumbed down version of table tennis. It appears that Rockstar, a pioneer in the open-ended action genre, also wants to be a pioneer in the sports genre. For $40, they did a decent job of adding their own twisted flavor to the sports videogame world. But innovation does not necessarily guarantee quality.

Let’s delve a little deeper into the price of the game and Rockstar’s motivation for making Table Tennis. In my opinion, $40 seems like a fair price to ask for this brand new 360 game. Allow me to make it clear that I would not pay more than $40 for Table Tennis—there are too many features missing to make this game a complete one, which I'll be getting to in a moment.

Since TT’s inception, Rockstar has announced that the same engine that powers its new ping pong game will be used by the next Grand Theft Auto game that will be appearing on both the 360 and the PS3. This message begs the question—is the $40 Table Tennis a game in its own right, or is it simply a test run for the upcoming Grand Theft Auto?