Table Tennis is simple...but good.

The first thing you need to know about Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis is that there's no cheat code that lets you club your opponents to death with a ping pong paddle. Though you'd be forgiven for assuming otherwise.

When the company that blessed us with fatal hooker smackdowns in the Grand Theft Auto games announced that their first Xbox 360 title was going to be a next-gen version of Pong, plenty of people figured it was a hoax.

That, or Rockstar's take on the pseudo-sport would include gangsters, gunplay and strippers. Because peelers and ping pong balls go together like chocolate and peanut butter, except with slightly less mess. Slightly.

But no. Rockstar's Table Tennis is a straight-ahead, E-rated simulation of video gamedom's original sport. And what's even weirder is it's actually pretty darn good. Simple, but good.

If you're looking for a sports game with a ton of depth and features, you're looking in the wrong place. Table Tennis has no career mode, no create-a-player feature, no mini-games and no Tommy Vercetti cameo. It's just pure pong.

Still, you'd be hard-pressed to name a game that more accurately represents the sport it strives to simulate. Table Tennis looks, feels, sounds and practically smells like professional-calibre ping pong. Man, it still feels weird to write that. Rockstar Games doing pong. I love it.

The players are rendered in amazing detail, and none of that herky-jerky transitioning between canned animations that we're used to seeing in sports games. They even subtly shift their weight as they move across the table to hit the ball, and the replays are a joy to watch.

The ball physics are astounding, the control scheme is sublime and even the crowd response is startlingly realistic. Winning a rally after 60, 70 or even 100 hits is as satisfying as executing a fourth-and-long Hail Mary in Madden.

In terms of the actual mechanics of the game, you couldn't ask for anything more. It's the stuff beyond the gameplay that's lacking. While online play is solid (even though I got my butt handed to me in every Xbox Live match I played), there are essentially just two game modes -- exhibition and tournament -- with no doubles play and zero extras.

The game's lower-than-average $50 price helps offset some of the lack of features or long-term appeal, but Table Tennis might be best experienced as a rental first. It won't take long for you to know if it's worth a purchase.

And maybe someday they'll come out with a Hot Coffee-style stripper mod.

She shoots, she scores!

BOTTOM LINE

Ping pong by the makers of the Grand Theft Auto games? It's no joke -- this is a fun and technically proficient simulation of table tennis. Only the lack of depth and additional features hurts its overall appeal.