Family Table Tennis is the first WiiWare game to directly compete with Wii Sports and Wii Play…two games that almost every Wii owner already have. So, is it a waste of your hard earned Wii Points? Or is this a fun, new experience that can be enjoyed alongside Wii Sports Tennis? Read on to find out!
Table Tennis (better known to some under the trademarked name of 'Ping Pong') is similar to regular Tennis, but differs greatly in that it is generally played on a table in your basement rather than on a tennis court. There are other differences too, such as the use of paddles instead of rackets. But those differences (significant in the real game) are irrelevant in a video game presentation such as this. The player seldom will notice any difference between the paddles in this game and the rackets in Wii Sports. In the end, it's all just swinging the Wiimote, after all....
All in all, Family Table Tennis offers a very enjoyable and –above all- affordable experience. Though the game isn't perfect, Family Table Tennis's low price makes it one of the best games on the Wii Shop Channel. Give it a try, at $5.00, you can't really go wrong.
There's two types of bad games out there: one kind is a badly designed, poorly crafted, ugly piece of software that isn't worth wasting your time on. The second kind, however, is simply bad because it has absolutely no reason to exist; it doesn't necessarily have to have horrible graphics, bad controls, etc., just rendered utterly useless by normal circumstances. Family Table Tennis is one of the latter variety.
You can do much better things with five dollars. Buy yourself some marbles. Buy your five friends some gum. Or maybe you'd like a yo- yo? IGN honestly don't care if you throw your five dollars in the trash. Just don't buy this game. Otherwise, there might be a sequel, IGN might have to play it, and they might have to kill themselves. Seriously, even for five dollars, Family Table Tennis is offensive, epitomizing exactly the type of ambitionless software gamers don't want on WiiWare or on Wii.
Presentation - 3.0
Graphics - 3.0
Sound - 3.0
Gameplay - 2.0
Lasting Appeal - 0.0
Overall -
