Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour

"I want to hit this game with a tennis racket!"

Introduction
Usually I like tennis games a lot. I think it's fun to imagine you're one of the world's best tennis players, you're travelling all over world and winning tournament everywhere from great opponents. That's why I bought this game. And that's also why it's really too bad this game isn't anything like that. I'm not sure if there are any other tennis games out on the GameBoy, but if there are, please buy one of them. Any one.

Gameplay
There are only two modes you can choose from: “Play” and “Practice” (there's also “Resume”, but it (obviously) resumes your game). The Play mode (the main mode) you will travel from city to city all over the world playing big tournaments. If you win the match, in which you'll need to win 1, 2 or 3 sets (you can decide in the options), you can continue to the next city. Too bad all the courts look alike, so you probably won't take the effort to play through the 16 different cities. This mode has a password function, so you can pick up where you left off (if you want to). In the practise mode, you can choose between 100, 200 or 300 balls that will be shot out of a ball cannon, and you can choose the difficulty setting. The thing is, this game is too easy to need a practice mode. You can win every match on the hardest mode the first time you play this game. It's almost ridiculous how easy this game is.

Let's move on to the controls. You can hit the ball normal, and lob the ball (a high ball over your opponent, which are useless, as you can simply run back and hit the ball; there's plenty of time). You can decide the direction of the ball by holding down the direction-button (you can also hold down “up” and “down” to change the distance the ball will travel). By holding down the button your player will make his stance to hit the ball (he can't be moved from that moment if you hold the button down). The longer you'll hold down the button, the harder the ball will go. Well, that's about it. It sounds like there's plenty ways to make a point, but every rally will be the same: You serve, he hits back, you go to net as fast as possible and you score the point. If he serves, the same thing will happen. It's almost impossible to score a points from the baseline, so you'll have to go towards the net. Don't worry about missing a ball, because if you do, you can simply run back to the baseline and try and hit the bal again! I think that says enough about this game.

This game is no fun to play. The matches feel like dull chores that you must do before you get some food. There's no variation here, no inspiration, no nothing. I also feel the need to say something about the speed of this game. I have never seen a sport game which involved balls this slow. Sometimes, when I was at the net, I missed the ball. I then went back a few steps and tried again, but missed. Then I ran back all the way to the baseline to hit the ball, but this time I got it; it even made it to the other side. This shouldn't be possible. I mean, when you serve the ball, you can walk across the whole court (well, your side of it) and be on time to hit the return! I suspect Ubisoft from smacking the name of former World Champion Jimmy Connors on this horrible game to make at least a tiny bit of money.
2/10

Graphics
The graphics of this game are better than you'd expect. But only a bit. Every players looks exactly the same, as do most of the courts you play on. There's also a referee, but he doesn't move. The characters looks pretty good, with some detail added to them (they even move a bit while waiting for the ball). They do the side-steps tennis players do when they move to left and right, and move normal when they approach the net. When they move backwards, their feet don't move, which I found a bit odd. When they hit a ball, it looks pretty convincing. On both sides of you is a big tribune, but you can't see it well because three-quarters of it isn't visible on the screen (the people in it don't move, but I guess that's reasonable since we're talking about a GameBoy game here). The overall thought here, however, is that it could have been a lot better…
6/10

Sound
I'm not sure why, but I really like the music in this game. There's only one theme, but I think it's very catchy. It's the only reason to have the sound up in this game, by the way. The sound when your ball hits the net made me think of a fork hitting a wineglass, and I couldn't even place the sound you hear when you hit a ball with your racket…I think it most closely resembles a Tetris block which hits the floor. You can also hear the cheering of the audience when you win a game, which doesn't sound horrible, but not great either. It sounds about the same as the cheering in the Ice Hockey game on the NES (if you've ever played it).
6/10

Play Time/Replayability
There are 16 courts you can play on in the Main Mode, so you'd say there'd be enough to do. Too bad every match is the same, dull experience. You can also play the practise mode, but the game too easy for you to need practise, and it's extremely boring. If you happen to have a friend who is also the unlucky owner of this game, you can link your Gameboys and play against each other, which might be actually fun for a few minutes. If you're really persistent, you'll play this game for an hour. Then you'll collapse and throw it out of the window, only to never play it again.
2/10

Final Recommendation
This is probably one of the worst games I've ever played. It's simply no fun to do. Games should be entertaining, not torturing you with dull gameplay and odd noises! Don't buy this game. And if someone gives it to you, wait until they leave and then throw it in the garbage. I give this game a 3, and that's only because I like the music and the graphics aren't that bad (plus, it was a present from my Mom ^_^).

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 01/06/05