Recently, I purchased an Oculus Quest 2 after seeing a YouTube video of Dan from Table Tennis Daily playing a game called Eleven Table Tennis. The game looked so realistic in the mechanics of hitting the ball and the fact you can compete online was very appealling. I have only used it once so far, so this post will be a summary of my first impressions of the game and I will do a full review when I have played it a bit more.

The game costs £14.99 from the Oculus store which is pretty good value in comparison with some of the other games. Before I bought the Oculus, I had used VR twice before. The first time was actually at the 2019 Table Tennis National Championships where they had a Table Tennis simulator. I remember it was good, but Eleven has taken it to a whole new level.

The second time I used VR was on a PlayStation VR system where I played Beat Saber which was very good and will certainly be something I get for my system in the future.

So, as someone not being very used to VR, I set up my head-set and downloaded the game. The interface is funny because the table you practise on looks like you’re in a bedroom of an apartment with an unmade bed behind you!

There are a number of practice modes. You can play against the computer in varying difficulties. I had a go against the easiest level and found my forehand was just as bad in VR as in real life. Very Realistic! There was also a serve practice area, beer pong, target practice and having one side of the table folded up to hit against like in Forrest Gump.

After I had started to get more used to the controls, I saw on the notifications icon that I had been challenged to a match. ‘Great’, I thought as I wanted to see how good the players online were. In the Table Tennis Daily video, Dan showed off a function where you can speak to the players when you playing against them. I assumed this was just for friends.

Apparently not! When I entered a game, a Scottish voice very kindly welcomed me, much to my surprise! He was very nice and helped me to select a ranked match as I didn’t know what to do. As we started, I was clearly not very used to serving as the ball kept going in to the net. My opponent was ok. Nothing special in terms of spin or serves, but he had clearly played before. I didn’t really care about winning, I was still new to it all so I just wanted to try out some shots.

Mid-way through the first set, I made a bit of a comeback as I managed to do some nice side and back spin serves, but he just edged it. After that, I got more in to it and actually won the next to sets which gave me the match. After this, the Scottish man asked if I wanted another game which I agreed to.

This was much more one sided. I thrashed him. It was a lot of fun and hopefully I’ll be able to work my way up the rankings a bit where I’m sure the standard will be much higher.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve done on it so far. I’ll do a more in-depth review soon and I really look forward to playing some more matches!