In my youth, tennis was a favourite pastime of mine. Anyone who’s ever tried the act of hitting the spongy fluorescent green ball knows how difficult it truly is. You need to be able to dash across the court, come to a complete stop and position yourself perfectly before you even begin to have the slightest dream of connecting with the ball. In some ways, I could see how it might interest certain mature gamers to embody some of this strategy in a tennis video game, as oftentimes the more realistic the sports game, the better.

Outlaw Tennis, which is available for Xbox and PS2, is not a realistic sports game but in a specific crucial way it sure does pretend to be one.

With Outlaw Tennis it seems to me that developers took a stab at making the gameplay realistic but it turns out to be frustrating instead. It took me too long to score my first point and hours to really get the hang of simply returning the ball. The main problem is too much emphasis is placed on positioning your character in order to return the ball, so it becomes impossible to return it in a specific direction. Even after getting the hang of it, I still found myself running to where the ball was going to land, only to find myself then running away from the ball or past it because I had apparently started to aim my return too soon or too late.

Games such as Virtua Tennis and Mario Tennis were easier on the gameplay and in response players had the full opportunity to take advantage of curving, placement, rallying and power – everything that makes tennis fun. Forget that in Outlaw Tennis because you?ll just find yourself stumbling across the court cursing at the computer triumphing over you quite unfairly.

Opportunities to win turbo seconds, in which case your character can blast back the ball and teleport across the court, come in the form of specific challenges, such as coming back form a love-forty disadvantage for example, or if you win a fight. You or the opponent can choose to instigate fights typically two times each per game.

I will give the game credit for compiling a broad variety of game modes, unlockable characterscostumes and online capabilities. And for those of you that are into the gratuitous use of sex in a video game then look no further. Female characters in this game are large breasted, scantily dressed and of great abundance; Outlaw Tennis also makes sure of their exploitation.

As progress is made through Tour mode, more levels are unlocked in the Drills mode, so that you can build up things such as your character?s stamina and power. Drills include scenarios in which the opposite court will have things such as land mines, a puzzle or even an evil robot – all demanding precise returns.

I return to my main point however, that in a madcap sports game with exploding tennis balls, 2-D fighting and more cleavage than you can shake a stick at ? no pun intended ? I don?t think it makes sense to have such difficult game play.






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