WTA Tour Tennis

"Big Babe Tennis in Sprite Form!"

I love tennis. I used to prefer the women's game since it had a certain old-school integrity that the men's game lacked. Recently, the men's game has regressed to a slightly better and older style of play and the women's game has developed into the power game.

But still, chicks rock!!

Tennis itself is a great sport. For some odd reason, however, a vast majority of tennis video games suck big time. They either go way to arcade like and play more like a fancy version of Pong or they fail in trying to pull off an accurate simulation.

In the entire existence of the PSOne, there was only one good tennis game and it was only released in Europe. Many were released over here and all of them sucked.

This game for the Gameboy Advance, however, finds the comfortable middle between arcade style and simulation.

Tennis is difficult to get right. Having always love the real sport, it's annoying to see people go nuts over EA Sports Madden 2003 and other sports games.

This is a pretty(pun intended) tennis game.

Graphics: 9/10

Very impressive. The surfaces all look real and it is not difficult to see the tennis ball, even when it is moving very fast. Many tennis games have the problem where you can't tell when to swing the racquet(or where to stand when you do). Not this game. It is easy enough to time shots, but difficult enough to place them, so as not to lead to total dominance by the human player. But now I'm getting into gameplay.

Each player is animated in a respectful way by the game authors. They are cute, but not ridiculous looking.

Gameplay: 9/10

This game is really difficult. It can be difficult to win some of the medium level computer matches and nearly impossible to beat players such as Jennifer Capriati, Serena Williams(Venus isn't in this one), or Martina Hingis.

The game enables players to hit special shots based on what person you chose. Serena can hit powerful passing shots; Martina Hingis has tremendous control.

The game itself is currently(7/02) only available in Japanese, but this matters very little since a majority of the game is subtitled in English. The announcer also announces in English, which is great for us, but very odd for the Japanese.

Nothing in this game is too complicated(except for maybe volleying and drop shots) and nothing is to simple.

I recommend this game if you have even a passing interest in tennis.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 07/01/02, Updated 07/01/02