A *Beeping* Ace Tennis Game! (Top Ranking Tennis (GB))

Member Name: scream4bruce

Product:	Top Ranking Tennis (GB)
Date:	15/03/09 (85 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Individual competitors, difficulty about right, challenging and rewarding

Disadvantages: Graphics not great, sound emulation problems, inconvenient controls

Sadly I might never get to play this against someone never mind in 4 players.

PRESENTATION
What looks like an American football player as chair umpire and an audience who wouldn't pass for as people stay static. Your player is solidly shaded whilst your opponents appears as an outline. But each of your competitors do see to individual character sprites, with those higher up in the rankings having an avatar if not a unique theme tune also. There are three types of surfaces which not only look but play differently. And whilst the ball does not bounce true off the walls, an opposition overhead smash can see the ball get to quite a size as it comes close to the 'camera'! I wouldn't say the view provided is always perfect, but it's no problem after a while.

Whilst I feel those who think the Game Boy audio is just beeps should just *BEEP* off themselves I never thought the handheld be able to pull off voice samples. Ironically though, when playing this on the Game Boy Color and the Game Boy Advance SP, the sounds suffer with the voices clipping, if not, becoming beeps. The Super Game Boy emulates the audio well, but the opposition sprite flicker seems bad on the bigger screen.

CONTROLS
Top Ranking Tennis opts for a range of serves and shots over accessibility, so inconveniently, both the Select and Start buttons sees to strokes; the game can only be paused by tapping Up twice before service toss. It can take a while to get a feel for the tennis - you'll need to strike at the sweet spot or otherwise it can be a mishit. So it feels realistic. It's subtle enough that there are service lets, but not enough that, should you play as a player with a delicate shot then you could pull them off consecutively.

CHALLENGE
There is battery back-up so 4 players can climb the rankings. Your choice of shot and run level (A, B or C) for your character can determine by degrees just how challenging your opposition are, and it can also bring about replay value. Make no mistake though, whilst I disagree with the order of the rankings, those towards the top are truly tough and you must exploit their weaknesses and come up with winners. The opposition never feel cheap - rather, for their aces they do commit double-faults and unforced errors. So it feels realistic, and as well as that it can get intense! To top the rankings in this tough title was a great feeling! And true to the game, doubles tennis is a different kettle of fish to singles matches.

Now, when you lose an official game your ranking (if applicable) drops one. Since you can only challenge whomever is directly avail above, should you drop below the previous competitor then you might find yourself alternatively winning and losing to the same opposition. Not something a quick reset before ranking update cannot sort though! As for Practice matches, you pick a player below you in the rankings and call the shots i.e. choose the court and no. of sets.

CONCLUSION
It's worth preserving with Top Ranking Tennis - it at least matches, if not beats, many of the tennis games on the more advanced consoles for depth. And unless Jimmy Connor has something to say about it, it deserves to be the top ranking tennis game on the old Game Boy. Such is the strength just going solo - it's up there with the tennis game greats.

Summary: Top Ranking Tennis for GB