Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour

"A 2-player game that always serves an ace."

I picked this game up purely by accident at a market stall many years ago and I have never regretted it.
I believe this game is the best tennis game on the Snes and it is as enjoyable as any of the recent tennis games on the next-gen consoles. The two-player mode in particular is excellent and it is well worth buying the game for this reason only.

The main part of the game is the tournament mode. In this you take control of Jimmy Connors and play through an entire year. Each month you choose which tournament you will enter, normally you have the option of 2-4 tournaments. By winning a tournament you score a certain amount of points depending on the credibility of the tournament e.g. US Open is worth 100 points while the Dubai Open may be worth only 20 points. The scoring system works well, so if you won the French open you would receive 100 points, the losing finalist- 50 points, each of the losing semi finalists- 25points etc. These points are used to determine your world ranking with the aim of the game to be ranked as world number one at the end of the year. This mode can be great fun with all the major tournaments and the matches can be challenging at first.

However I have a few minor gripes with the tournament mode. Firstly you can only be Jimmy Connors, secondly the password system has a stupid amount of characters in it, thirdly it gets too easy too quickly and finally the computer players only score points in tournaments you enter. So if you choose not enter a 100 point ranking event and enter a 20 point ranking event no computer players will enter the 100 point event.

The sound and music in the game is barely worth discussing, as it is almost none existent. The tile music is nice and catchy but the in game sound is limited to simple sounds of a ball bouncing or being struck and the umpire saying ''Game, player one''.

The actual game is presented very well with excellent and easily navigated menu screens. The graphics are standard for Snes games of this time although the player movement looks good and the view of the court in excellent.
The players are all very well designed and have their own strengths and weaknesses. They also have their own individual coloured kits and rackets. Another nice touch is that playing at Wimbledon sees all the players dressed in white and also regular rain pauses! However what is slightly disappointing is that all the players are fictional as it would have been nice to try to re-create a Borg verses Connors final. A second problem of note with the characters is the Bruce Barnaby is, after extensive play, clearly the best out of the 16 players. By playing with Barnaby his superior striking ability from the baseline makes matches a bit too easy. However in two-player this is less of a problem and using a net player such as Edson can produce some enjoyable games. Something else I have noticed, which I can only assume is a glitch, is that Akira's serve always bounces over the receiver if you are playing on a indoor court meaning he always scores aces.

Another slightly disappointing aspect of the game is that once you get good at the game most characters are easily beaten, however this is where the excellent two-player mode comes in. You and a friend can either play singles or doubles (co-op or verses) and this is where I feel the true genius of the game shines. As the game is very easy to pick up (the training mode is also very good) anyone can quickly become good at this game. Two people can play a singles match together and have a closely fought match no matter how many times they have played each other before. Me and my mate have spent hours playing singles and we both can go into a match on an equal footing with neither of us expecting to win. Even playing 2 player co-operative doubles is good fun with communication between both players needed to be able to beat the computer on its hardest setting.

Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour is a brilliant tennis game, it has its faults but it’s still extremely enjoyable. I have seen that this game can be picked up on the internet for next to nothing and I would recommend buying it whether you intend to play it solo or not. If you play lots of multiplayer Snes games then this is a must buy, and even if you don't, the single player will last you a long while.

I have rated this 9/10 mainly because of the fantastic multiplayer. If I didn’t take the multiplayer mode into account this game would still receive a 7/10 as in solo play this game is still great fun.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/18/04