I spent a bit of timing hanging out with Rockstar's San Diego studio folks at PAX. They are they team responsible for Table Tennis and were hosting the Table Tennis tournament at the show.

It was interesting to listen to them analyze the gameplay. One of the guys said he fingered the winner of the tournament on the first day of play by his style.

He was standing just the right distance from the table, he said. Also he could play with any of the characters and adapted to new styles of play quickly.

Another guy was telling me that when they were creating the game they didn't really have any other games to look at, so they decided to use fighting titles as the model. I knew it. I knew there was something familiar about the back and forth, the subtle tactics of the game.

I, once more, asked the team to introduce fatalities to the game. I'm not sure if I should take their belly laughs as a yes or a no.

I shot some pictures of the modded Xbox 360 in action (One of the guys told me that the mod cost $3,500. Holy crap!). The ping-pong ball lights up during play, which is a cool little touch.

The winner also took home a copy of the game with some of the team's signatures on it. The runner-up won a framed poster for the game with all of the development team's signatures on it. Brian Crecente

Contact information for this author is not available.