Merge Games, ONE-O-ONE GAMES and IV Productions recently released VR Ping Pong Pro and sent us a code to try it out on our PSVR. Is it worth the price or should you just drop the paddle and walk away?

Read on to find out.

Ping pong is a simple enough game, where you have to hit a small ball back and forth on a table with a net in the middle. You probably have played it sometime in your life, or at least have seen it played, but who actually knows the rules? After playing VR Ping Pong Pro, we still don’t. There is no hand holding or tutorial here, so prepare to learn by the errors of your ways.

World Class AI

VR Ping Pong Pro is an interesting game that has a pretty big learning curve. The physics of the game are pretty accurate, and therefore require practice in order to serve or return a ball properly. Slight variations in paddle angle will result in different angles of hitting, and the game is very accurate in that sense. Serving also takes some practice and you can choose between using both hands to serve or just one.We tried to master both but had very little luck with one handed serving. Two handed serving was hard enough, but at least we were finally able to consistently hit our side and bounce the ball over the net to the opponent.

Playing solo on easy or on the 2nd difficulty, once you get the hang of hitting the ball properly, is pretty simple. Ramp up that difficulty to a 3, 4 or 5 and prepare to get destroyed. Maybe it was just us, but the AI is world class on those higher settings. On the 2 setting, the AI is a little tricky, but once you find their weakness you can beat them consistently. From 3 on up, though Wow! Just scoring a point becomes a challenge, let alone winning a match. If you can master the AI at 3, 4, or 5, you will kill online.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Playing folks from around the world in the multiplayer modes will find you matching up with a variety of players with ranging skills. There’s not a huge pool of players on the PS4, so it may take a few minutes to find a match. We would strongly suggest a lot of practice before jumping into online play, and making sure you have your positioning set to comfortable levels, as we matched up with someone that could probably beat the AI on the 3 or 4 setting and it did not end well for us.

Easy on the Eyes

The graphics for the game are OK, but even on a PS4 Pro aren’t the best and some of that is due to the limitations of the VR headset. The eight different locations have some detail to them and are easy on the eyes. It’s really not a bad looking game.

If you are expecting to just jump right into VR Ping Pong Pro and be one of the best players, don’t. Be prepared to practice a lot if you want to be good at the game. The game is priced at £19.99/$24.99/ €24.99, which seems a bit high for a limited amount of content, but still is quite a bit of fun to play.

7

VR Ping Pong Pro review code provided by publisher and reviewed on a PS4 Pro and PSVR. For more information on scoring, please read What our review scores really mean.