The First Tennis-in-hand Experience (Tennis (GB))

Member Name: JJJJ

Product:	Tennis (GB)
Date:	04/11/08 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Gameplay for the time

Disadvantages: Dated Nowadays

Back in the days when computer games were innocent and safe, the Gameboy ruled the roost with its portable nature and trademark yellowy screen. I was a big Gameboy fan and had loads and loads of games for the system, but only a few of them stood out from the crowd. The first was 'Tetris' - the ridiculously addictive game of falling blocks - has there ever been a better game soundtrack!? The second was the imaginatively titled 'Tennis', which was first released in 1989.

Tennis featured basic but bold graphics, and the characters were large and chunky enough to allow the player to clearly see the onscreen action - which could at times be fairly speedy!

The sound effects were average - electronic bips could be heard every time a player struck the ball, and 'white-noise' was used for the crowd cheering effects. This was standard practice for games of this era, as the consoles had extremely limited sound chips which didn't allow anything more effective.

In terms of its gameplay, Tennis was quite different to what had gone before. Firstly it offered the player a choice of shots, including a lob option. This was fairly unusual as many of the previous tennis games on other platforms only had one-button controls, which limited the range of options the player had for returning shots. The action was fairly quick, and the AI of the computer oppenent actually wasn't too bad.

Tennis was an excellent Gameboy title, and for the nostalgic amongst you, a video of the game in action can be viewed at: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d7jyWR3HDBU

Summary: Awesome Game