Tennis games have always been some of my favorites to play, and this one is one of the best for the 8-bit systems. The game is loosely based on the Genesis game of the same name, and fortunately, the gameplay from the Genesis game is still intact. In addition, almost all the options from the Genesis game are here.

Tournament or match play are both included, match play being for learning the game and tournament play being for playing through a tournament with a character you create. In match play, you can choose easy or normal difficulty, which makes a huge difference in the speed and difficulty of the opponent(s). There are 16 men and 16 women you can choose and options such as court type (lawn, clay or grass) and singles or doubles.

The game itself is (three quarter) view, with one player at the top and one at the bottom (or two at the top and two at the bottom in doubles). You can play 1 player against the computer or another player, 2 players against 2 computer opponents or 1 player with a computer player against 2 other computer opponents. The action, playing in normal level, is fast and furious, probably too fast for beginning players, though there is an easy mode for beginners to get down the basics of the game before being barraged with the normal level. Serving the ball, on the easy level, is simple - it’s impossible to hit the ball out of bounds. On normal level, serving is more difficult and requires precise timing to hit the ball in bounds. Graphics are decent for an 8-bit game, although certainly nothing breakthrough. The players are animated nicely, but the colors seem a bit drab. The sounds in the game are less than exciting, but other than putting in an announcers voice to call the score/etc., there’s not much that can be done for the sounds. This is certainly not the best tennis game I’ve ever played, but it’s better than any other SMS tennis game!

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