Now, if you're like me, you pretty much grew up with video games and started gaming at a very early age, with Nintendo, Sega or Playstation. The first system that I ever owned was a Super Nintendo but later on in my early teens I played a couple of the old NES games at a friend's house and two of the games that he had were, Top Players Tennis and Jimmy Connor's Tennis.
Today I'll be reviewing both games for the original Nintendo and just to be fair I replayed them recently and they were just as bad as I remembered.
Game: Top players Tennis
Year: 1990
System: Nintendo
This is the most pathetic excuse that I've ever seen for a video game. When you first turn on the game, you are greeted by an annoying robotic voice which tells you the names of the two pro tennis players, in this game, Chris Evert and Ivan Lendl. When you press start the player select screen pops up and you can play as one of four players, Evert, Lendl, and a really ugly boy and girl. The controls on this game just suck. Your character tosses the ball so high, that it almost goes out of the stadium and it makes the serve extremely difficult to time. You have to start your service motion when the ball is at it's maximum height so it looks like you're swinging at a ball that's over 40 feet in the air. The ground stokes, while confusing, are manageable, but serving, volleying, moving the character, and controlling the ground strokes is a nightmare.
Bottom line, this game just sucks, it's so bad it's worth trying it just for a laugh but don't spend any money on this early 90s piece of junk.
Year: 1990
System: Nintendo
This is the most pathetic excuse that I've ever seen for a video game. When you first turn on the game, you are greeted by an annoying robotic voice which tells you the names of the two pro tennis players, in this game, Chris Evert and Ivan Lendl. When you press start the player select screen pops up and you can play as one of four players, Evert, Lendl, and a really ugly boy and girl. The controls on this game just suck. Your character tosses the ball so high, that it almost goes out of the stadium and it makes the serve extremely difficult to time. You have to start your service motion when the ball is at it's maximum height so it looks like you're swinging at a ball that's over 40 feet in the air. The ground stokes, while confusing, are manageable, but serving, volleying, moving the character, and controlling the ground strokes is a nightmare.
Bottom line, this game just sucks, it's so bad it's worth trying it just for a laugh but don't spend any money on this early 90s piece of junk.
Game: Jimmy Connors Tennis
Year 1993
System: NES
Well, for a game coming out as late as 1993, I would expect something much better than this. The music is so bad in this game that they give you the option to turn it off and the controls aren't much better, although the serve is much easier in this game than in Top Player's tennis. Jimmy's, ground strokes are slow and his primary weapon is some kind of weird slice shot that he can execute if you hold the B button and then release when you're ready to strike the ball. The volleys are very hard to hit unless you are right on top of them but moving Jimmy around the court isn't that bad. He doesn't slide in the same way that Lendl does in the Top Player's tennis game.
The one strange about this game is that it seems to be set in the 70s. Instead of playing with a yellow tennis ball and graphite racquet, Jimmy is back to his old days of wood frames and white tennis balls. The tennis ball is actually too small in this game, it looks more like a golf ball or maybe a wadded up piece of paper. Yeah, that sounds right to me, Jimmy Connors, is beating his opponents with a wadded up piece of paper.
Anyway, this game is pretty bad but it's not terrible. If you can learn to master Jimmy's weird slice backhand then you might have fun with it but it's going to take some work and a few play throughs, it's not something that you can just sit down and completely master in 5 minutes.
Check back for part 2 where I will be reviewing Andre Agassi's tennis for the SNES and Tennis for the original game boy.
Year 1993
System: NES
Well, for a game coming out as late as 1993, I would expect something much better than this. The music is so bad in this game that they give you the option to turn it off and the controls aren't much better, although the serve is much easier in this game than in Top Player's tennis. Jimmy's, ground strokes are slow and his primary weapon is some kind of weird slice shot that he can execute if you hold the B button and then release when you're ready to strike the ball. The volleys are very hard to hit unless you are right on top of them but moving Jimmy around the court isn't that bad. He doesn't slide in the same way that Lendl does in the Top Player's tennis game.
The one strange about this game is that it seems to be set in the 70s. Instead of playing with a yellow tennis ball and graphite racquet, Jimmy is back to his old days of wood frames and white tennis balls. The tennis ball is actually too small in this game, it looks more like a golf ball or maybe a wadded up piece of paper. Yeah, that sounds right to me, Jimmy Connors, is beating his opponents with a wadded up piece of paper.
Anyway, this game is pretty bad but it's not terrible. If you can learn to master Jimmy's weird slice backhand then you might have fun with it but it's going to take some work and a few play throughs, it's not something that you can just sit down and completely master in 5 minutes.
Check back for part 2 where I will be reviewing Andre Agassi's tennis for the SNES and Tennis for the original game boy.
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