Tennis

"What you see is what you get."

Today there are two big Tennis game series available, one is the realistic Virtual Tennis series made by Sega, the other the less serious Mario Tennis series developed by Camelot. And while it's very possible that both series would be able today even if this game have never been released, it's still interesting to see how much have changed in tennis games since 1989. Tennis was one of the launch titles on the Game Boy system, but it was already released back in 1985 on the Nes. The main difference between this version and the NES version is actually just the graphic, which is cuter on the Game Boy version.

I assume that anyone knows how the basic rules of the sport called Tennis. I doubt this surprises anyone, but in this game it's the same rules as in the reality, instead of made up rules. You can either do a regular smash with your bat or a lob, and you can also aim where you want the ball to go, but it takes a lite time of playing before you learn how to do that.

Just like in many other Game Boy games, the Nintendo mascot Super Mario also has a role in this game, this time he's the judge. This very good since it sometimes happens that you disagree and the ball was out, you can accept it since it was Mario who said it was out.

If you play this game alone, then there's four different difficult levels to select. The first one is really easy ones you figure out what is the best play style for you, but trying to take down level 4 is a great challenge. Usually when I play against a level 4 computer it's usually I who win the first game, then the computer wins the next one, then I win, then the computer wins, until it's all settled with a tiebreaker.

If you know someone else who also has this game then it's possible to play against with your friend. It can actually be a bit fun. But this game has a few big flaws, for example playing 1 match takes a lot of time, since you can only play 3 set matches. And the characters move a bit to slow, which means that cheap moves are great if you want to win a match, but this can also work against you.

But overall this game is ok, and don't sell it if you got it in your collection, since it can be fun to kill 20 minutes with this game once in a while.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 04/09/07