Table Tennis - it's the future!

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Rockstar serves up an unexpected next-gen treat

The creator of Grand Theft Auto has announced a brand new game for Xbox 360 - Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis, due for release on 26 May, priced at £30.

Developed by Rockstar's San Diego team - who created free-roaming racer Midnight Club and wild west shooter Red Dead Revolver - table tennis might be a gigantic leap from the crime-antics of GTA, but it's still getting the full, quality-obsessed Rockstar treatment.

We had a chat with Sam Houser, executive producer at Rockstar Games, about what made Rockstar decide to develop a table tennis game. "We absolutely love table tennis," he told us, "and were very interested in making a game that took classic one-on-one gameplay to a new level, while pushing every technical and visual boundary in the book."

As for being a 360 exclusive, Sam explained that Rockstar felt that "the hardware could actually make the game we were imagining - a table tennis game that not only looked good but felt good, because of the physics and control.

"Rockstar San Diego is known for creating game engines that push the hardware further than a lot of what is out there. With Table Tennis they've done it again."

Sam added that the San Diego team has created "an incredibly detailed game that focuses the hardware's entire power on one activity, instead of sprawling, wide open environments.

"I think it's an interesting way to showcase what we think the focus of high definition gaming is going to be - using the detailed graphics to improve gameplay, not to hide weak game design," Sam concluded.

You couldn't accuse Rockstar of weak game design, so we're expecting a table tennis sim that is both everything you'd expect and nothing you'd ever anticipate. And although it's 360 only right now, Rockstar Games presents Table Tennis sounds like the perfect Revolution title. We'll have more for you real soon.

Ben_Richardson

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.