It’s tennis, but on your Mac. Will it ‘serve’ you well?
Is it going to be a ‘smash’ ‘hit’? Are you likely to be ‘court’ ‘out’ by it? Or should you just ‘lob’ it in the bin?
The Mac isn’t bursting with tennis games, which gives International Tennis Open an immediate edge. You are Victor Player, and you can play a singles match against either one of four computer opponents or a friend, who’s given the name of Robert Garett.
The options screen (which is accompanied by a helpful voice saying, ‘Choose one of these options’) is disappointingly sparse. You can enter a tournament, or practise serves and returns. You can’t play doubles, which is a great loss, you can’t choose to be female, and you can’t change your player’s name. Once you’ve made your choice, the power of multimedia is brought to bear and you’re shown some video footage of your opponent, presumably to fill you with awe and anticipation. As with all video clips, you won’t want to watch each more than once.
It’s then time to play the match. To serve, you simply guide a little spot to where you want the ball to land – clearly a bit of a giveaway if you’re hoping to surprise your opponent. The same applies when he’s serving to you, meaning that aces are a rarity.
You can then play lobs, smashes and various other shots, and the game proceeds according to the rules of tennis. The result is somewhat dull. The ball is bashed backwards and forwards until someone misses it, and nothing exciting ever happens in between. No one makes a desperate dash across the court to reach a carefully placed shot down the line; instead, everyone moves around at a fixed speed, in a curiously crab-like manner. No one ever dives towards the ball and just manages to chip it over the net. In fact, no one even bothers to stretch, which is incredibly frustrating – if the ball’s just out of reach, your player apathetically lets it fly past. Matches are terribly samey, and to avoid getting bored you have to keep turning up the difficulty level so the game at least remains challenging.
Meanwhile, the umpire reads out the score (in an appropriate accent, depending on whether you’re in America, Britain or France) and a commentary is provided by George Eddy of Canal Plus (who, oddly, has an American accent – you think of commentators as being English). ‘That second service is just not going in,’ chuckles George as you miss your first two services of the match. ‘He was ready and waiting for that one,’ he notes, clearly unaware there was a large cross indicating where the ball was about to be served to. ‘And the question is, what shape is Victor Player in?’ Or, indeed, who is Victor Player? And, ‘There’s no answer to a volley like that,’ after you’ve just lost a rally that lasted for about five minutes, having missed the last shot deliberately because it was getting ridiculous.
International Tennis Open is a decent representation of a tennis game, but it’s far from perfect. Every move is carefully planned, detracting from the excitement; you can’t throw yourself at shots, like you might in a real tennis match; and you can’t even play a doubles match. But it works, and it is tennis on the Mac. Jonathan Davies
Price: £39.99. Out: now.
Requires: Mac II or better, System 7 or later, 256-colour monitor. CD version: 2.3Mb of RAM, CD-ROM drive. Floppy version: 3.4Mb of RAM, 12Mb of hard disk space.
Contact: Infogrames on 0171 738 8199.
Graphics 50%
Nothing special during the actual game.
Sound 82%
Effective umpiring, irritating commentary, and good sound effects.
Gameplay 66%
Workmanlike, but tends to become repetitive after a while.
