No pain, no gain

Ever since I decided to finish off the online aspects of Rockstar Table Tennis I've also been dedicating time to getting the Savant achievement. This basically requires you to complete the game on the hardest difficulty with EVERY character. Now you can replay a game every time you lose, so it's not like you need a faultless run in order to progress, but it is still pretty damn taxing.

For anyone who hasn't played the game before, it's fairly brutal. Even on the lower difficulties some of the characters are flat out annoying as hell to beat. The fact they can return smashed shots for an instant winner is a joke and, as you progress, they generally become more irritating. You can combat this to some sense by messing with the options - so you only need to win 7 points to win the match, plus you can alter it so you can serve five times in a row to help you out. Another cute trick is the fact certain character can hit service aces by standing in set spots and serving the ball at near perfect power/spin.

Still, even with those odds in your favour you can expect a bit of a slog. There are two characters who can practically never be Aced (Mark and Jung Soo) and they back that up by being tough to beat. I've also noticed that when using certain characters they all have a chance of being more or less good at serving aces, so some of them might breeze through everyone but the above two while others can barely ace anyone - and even if they do it is unreliable at best.

My main tactic thus far has been to incorporate a kind of death grip on my pad. Using the soft shot option (hold LB) along with a drop shot close to the net (down and left on the LS plus Y+B). As you can imagine, executing this move time and time again can lead to some serious stress on your hands, and my wrists have actually started to feel sore while playing the game in the last few days. I try to mix things up when I can, especially when I have a full focus meter, by using X+A when my opponent returns a slow shot to my right side. I can then spin the ball across to the left of the table and force them wide enough to bury a return to the right. Hopefully. In fairness I just pick up points however I can, forcing them to hit the net, lob up an easy smahs or whatever and I've been pretty good so far.

I've managed to complete nine of the eleven players (including a run on default settings with Jung Soo) and I'm three games from making that ten, with Juergen. That will just leave me with Jesper to do - which is ironic as I'd already completed an expert run with him years ago but wiped my save. Maybe the game will recognise that he has already been through that hell, but I doubt it. Should have this knocked out by the weekend.

I know my aching hands will thank me for it.