Table Tennis for the Wii is fun, but the controls are wonky
October 17, 2007Yesterday at lunch I picked up a copy of Rockstar’s new Wii game, Table Tennis, from the Gamestop at Fourth Street Live. And then of course spent the afternoon wondering how the game would play. Wasn’t nearly as productive as I could have been, I probably should have just waited to buy the game after work.
So anyway, last night I put the game disc into the Wii and went thru the Training mode plus I played a few games in the Tournament mode. When you hit the ball just right, like when you do a smash, it is incredibly fun. Because you’re actually swinging at the ball with the Wiimote, it’s almost like you’re really playing table tennis. Except that in my case, the ball stays in play a lot more than it would if I were really playing table tennis. Because I am a klutz in real life and a horrible table tennis player.
The thing is, I found it very difficult to get the timing down right. Yes part of that is my natural clumsiness. But in the tennis game on Wii Sports, I’m able to get my timing down pretty good. I can hit shots down the line and cross court without problems. But in Wii Table Tennis I only got the shots going the direction I wanted about a third of the time. I think the controls are just kinda wonky.
I think there’s some kind of delay issue going on. It seems like you actually have to swing a little bit ahead of when you should hit based off the on-screen image. That part of the timing is what’s causing me some grief.
But I think it’s learnable. I just need to spend a bit more time getting used to that rhythm. And the fun parts, like the smash, are enough to make me want to keep trying.