Table Tennis, I suck
I just lost multiple straight sets to my kids in Rockstar Table Tennis. Ugh, that was humiliating. Even worse is the fact that the kids have never played it for real at all. There I am trying to pull off my spin serves, and they just stand at the table, hit buttons, and crush me. I can’t seem to get past their octopus-like arms, and meanwhile they drive me ten feet back from the edge of the table, then cross me up and kill me.
The final nail in the coffin, and what made me get up and post, was when Elena asked “Hey, you hit the net! How do you hit the net? And you hit the underside of the table! How do you do that?”
You don’t want to know. I take some meager consolation in the thought that someday, your nine-year-old will do the equivalent to you.
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case) better than us. In some areas, however, the “skill increase” seems to be unrelated to any improvement in “training”. For the most part, it just seems … evolutionary. Raph Koster (I’ve got to stop plugging his site) described his experience inlosing at a table-tennis videogame against his children. His experience made all the more frustrating by the fact that his kids have never even seen a REAL game of table-tennis. I feel his pain, having faced the same defeat at the hands of a youngun — an experience I described on Raph’s site:
Don’t challenge them to a racing game…=)
[…] Comments […]
Challenge them to a game of Hot Coffee. That’ll show those young upstarts who’s boss!
Well now we have that in common, Raph. Although I think I win for the most embarrassing moment when I somehow managed to not only not return a serve but I somehow managed to miss the table entirely. To a spectator it must have looked like I was aiming for the corner of the room. Still, Rockstar nailed the game for ease of play and depth of potential. Good times, good times. 🙂 Feel free to add WanxiBrodo to your friends list on Live and we’ll play a match sometime. At least we’ll be evenly matched.
When you’re on your death bed, and they’re there by your side, just look up and say “Remember that time you kids beat me at table tennis?”
“Yeah dad?”
“Well… secretly I let you win.”
Little white death bed lies never hurt anyone.
Being beaten at a sport sim or racing game (or tactically losing to help reinforce your offspring’s self esteem) is one thing.
Being caught dancing like a madman on the DanceMat is a whole other level of horror.
[…] https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/05/25/table-tennis-i-suck/ I just lost multiple straight sets to my kids in Rockstar Table Tennis. Ugh, that was humiliating. Even worse is the fact that the kids have never played it for real at all. There I am trying to pull off my spin serves, and they just stand at the table, hit buttons, and crush me. I can’t seem to get past their octopus-like arms, and meanwhile they drive me ten feet back from the edge of the table, then cross me up and kill me. […]
You’d feel worse if you’d won. Maybe. After the initial power rush wore off, and you started to feel bad about it. Or not. 😛
I suffered similar humiliation when my (then) 10-year-old summarily roxx0rd my n00b a$$ in Dead or Alive 3. I had played it and mastered the prescribed moves of 4 characters. I knew all the button combinations for the basic and special moves for these chars. I knew many of the “secret” moves. The 10-year-old knew nothing. He had never set eyes on the game. He should not have been a challenge. He should have been walk in the park. He should have dissolved into tears within moments of me unleashing my uberness on him.
But, no … he just starts slappin’ away at random buttons (hitting several of them, I am certain, at a significant fraction of the speed of light), with no regard for tactics or even style. It was ugly. His character appeared to be having a seizure. So then why, in the name of not getting pwned by someone less than one-third your age, does this epileptic technique result in unequivocal victory over demonstrated mastery?
His spasmodic approach certainly did not change my circumstance any once I had (quickly) resigned myself to adopting it.
My only conclusion can be … it must be something in the milk these days.
[…] Raph Koster (I’ve got to stop plugging his site) described his experience in losing at a table-tennis videogame against his children. His experience made all the more frustrating by the fact that his kids have never even seen a REAL game of table-tennis. […]
Bovine growth hormone has been been proven to greatly enhance
game play and reflexes (its also making people taller!!), and subsequent feelings of humiliation in Adults
Example:
my daughter is 4, last weekend she was giving ME directions on how I was flying her kite completely wrong….:(
First there is ignorance. Then sophistication. Then comes mastery. The greatest swordsman in the world is not afraid of the second greatest; he fears the worst. Stupidity wins. A lot. Just not reliably.
Moral: You should ask for a dozen rematches.
Do you think you’d have a better chance if the game used a Wii controller rather than a traditional controller?
[…] Long ago, I blogged about how I suck at Rockstar Table Tennis and my kids were crushing me. […]
[…] Raph Koster (I’ve got to stop plugging his site) described his experience in losing at a table-tennis videogame against his children. His experience made all the more frustrating by the fact that his kids have never even seen a REAL game of table-tennis. […]