Previous Next

Hot on the heels of Imagine's Ping Pong (Well, twelve months later!) comes this curious little offering from Silvertime (Who?). It marks a continuing lull in the activities of US Gold, presumably saving up to flood the market in time for Xmas (or is it to compensate for the conspicuous absence of Gauntlet?). Anyway, I won't tire you with a description of Ping Pong the sport; suffice it to say that those inscrutable friends of Prince Philip tend to be rather good at it.

This latest version arrives as a beautifully presented game full of interesting but essentially useless options. You can change just about anything from the angle you view the table to the colour of the bats, to the skill factors of your game. On top of that you can play at three speeds and select a real or artificial opponent. Unfortunately, for all these options, it's still Ping Pong and with only three types of stroke I soon found it tiresome and limited.

Offering a choice of auto or manual mode only demonstrates how poorly conceived this game is, as in auto mode (the bat moves towards the ball automatically) certain strokes are quite impossible. Likewise, being able to adjust the skill factors to give you random advantage over a real opponent seems to defeat the object of a simulation which is, surely, to leave skill to the players themselves.

All in all, it would seem a lot of effort has gone into tarting up a dull and unimaginative game with superficial detail. Silvertime have done little to give Ping Pong a wider appeal and I remain convinced it's a poor choice for a sports simulation anyway. If you're still waiting for a version to capture the sonic and graphic thrill of Konami's coin-op Ping Pong you're in for a disappointment - this is definitely not it.

Some companies appear to have worked out that constantly searching for new angles on dull sports is a lot harder than inventing totally new ones, complete with space-age sound effects and extra-terrestrial playing areas. Just look at Ballblazer to see how the thrill of an arcade shoot-'em-up can be incorporated into a simulation if you bend the rules a little.

My tip is watch out for Odin's Hyperball, which I saw briefly at PCW; this is a game that's going to make life for below average knock-abouts like Ping Pong very tough indeed.