How does Rockstar Games go about promoting the upcoming release (October 12) of their table tennis game in Japan? By organizing private play party tournaments throughout the month in a swank penthouse apartment in Tokyo's Ebisu district, that's how. Following the craziness that was TGS, it was off to that event on Monday night, bringing along a few friends, including my brothers in hair, your very own Mike McWhertor and Scott "I played every PS3 game at show" Spatola.

The 2-storey pad, plus rooftop deck, was decked out with more HDTV sets than should probably be legally allowed, including 2 gigantic sets on which the tournament took place, plus a DLP projector. Loads of free booze, snacks, and pizza, turned yours truly into a monster table tennis machine (or so I was told), and unfortunately the schooling I dished out before the start of the tournament couldn't propel me to the final — and we learned to fear the cute Japanese girls who cleverly hid their ping-pong prowess (yeah, we got hustled). No worries though, as we did all get consolation prizes, including some primo Table Tennis swag.

And the game? I'll be picking it up on release (and for all you expat gamers, take note that the Japanese edition is multi-lingual). Oh, and as I chatted up with one of the Rockstar representatives — for those who attended TGS, he was on hand showing people how to play Tennis Table at the 360 booth — he casually mentioned that GTA4 would own us. Jean Snow