So, you’ll get broken a lot, but on the bright side your AI opponent also serves atrociously as well, keeping matches from being completely lopsided, I suppose. Or, if you do manage a rare successful power serve, your opponent will always (in my experience) smoke it past you with their return shot. Again, powerful serves can be attempted with the same button-hold technique but since there is no control over placement, they almost always go out. In serving (perhaps the most crucial part of a tennis match), this technical issue becomes almost a game-breaker. This results in lots of longer rallies in which you might win some points by luck but otherwise have little chance at purposely hitting winners. There is supposed to be the ability to control left-right aiming with the left stick, but from what I experienced the only input that registered was “extreme left or right.” Thus, you’ll quickly find that the safe precision shot is your only regular option.
The problem here is that powered-up shots usually land out, and I saw no way to really control where they landed. To take a shot, you hit the button when close to the ball, tapping quickly for an accurate but slower precision shot, and holding and releasing the button for a stronger but riskier shot. When hitting the ball, it doesn’t get much better. The game gives you the ability to sprint with the R2 trigger, but this is very laggy and your opponent will blast their shot past you before you are even close to reaching the ball. Moving side to side should be fluid, but character animation is clunky and the range of motion bafflingly limited this results in your player annoyingly stumbling sideways instead of running for the ball. For one thing, while controlling and moving your player on the court is straightforward in theory, in practice it is awkward and very frustrating. Unfortunately, while there are a few positives, this latest offering still misses the mark and fails to bring the greatness of tennis to gaming.Īs someone who plays and watches real tennis fairly regularly, I know that the game is exciting and fun, but for many reasons that magic is sadly missing from Tennis World Tour 2.
Now developers Big Ant Studios serve up a second shot at tennis success with Tennis World Tour 2 Complete Edition, bringing not only an updated version of the game but some extra content in the PS5 version. Tennis World Tour, released in 2018, didn’t exactly hit an ace with gamers with its rough gameplay and generally unpolished state.