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Tennis games are pathetic

How about liking the gameplay?
Maybe I am not passionate about sports but god damn, I don't play a sport game for the names.
I am also a car nut and crazy about racing and I wouldn't care less if cars are real brand given the game would be awesome.

.
 
Chairman Yang said:
Yeah, Mario Tennis GBC is one of the best sports games ever.

How was the GBA Mario Tennis? I stopped playing because I couldn't get past the long, boring, text-heavy Camelot intro, and I heard the game generally wasn't as good, but I'll give it another chance, maybe.
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The game's amazing, I'd say it's better than the GBC version.
 
3023xy0.jpg


Still the best. Minus Fed, a pretty damn good roster too, along with actual sponsors and grand slams. Tennis games this gen are abominations.
 
The original Top Spin was the bomb. I fucking loved that game. Top Spin 2 wasnt as good, and Top Spin 3 completely sucked.

I would love a good realistic tennis game.
 
My order of best tennis games:

Virtua Tennis 3

So yea, watching matches online was awesome and really addictive online multiplayer with friends was just the icing.


TS3 had to be the worst tennis game I've ever played. Tennis on rails? Fuck you PAM.
 
GoodMorning said:
Mario Tennis on the N64 was amazing, never played the GBC version though.
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The one on the GCN was pretty good too! Mario Power Tennis!

Gatdangit now I have to go play it again *rushes to Wii*
 
My favorite tennis game growing up was Advantage Tennis for the Amiga. I havent played it in years so Im sure it sucks now, but you started waaaaay at the bottom of the ATP, you improved your stats, could scout all opponents, and picked which tournaments you wanted to play on, great stuff back in the day

Screens here: http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=...t.php?list_genre=Sports&list_sub_genre=Tennis No hotlinking allowed and it seems like the internet has no other finds
 
Mario Tennis was uninspired garbage(on both the GBC and GC) Mario Golf(especially on GBC) was a different story...Probably the best story mode for a sports game ever.

Lard said:
NO ONE has mentioned
VT.jpg
????
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That's because Sega Sports Tennis was way better.
 
H_Prestige said:
3023xy0.jpg


Still the best. Minus Fed, a pretty damn good roster too, along with actual sponsors and grand slams. Tennis games this gen are abominations.
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Totally agree, i still play that game very often, it's the best tennis game out there.
 
What's wrong with Grand Slam Tennis? 23 name-players, including all of history's absolute best, and I think there's innumerable computer generated characters for variety.

Current Male Players: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Lleyton Hewitt and Kei Nishikori.
Current Female Players: Serena Williams, Venus Williams, Ana Ivanovic, Justine Henin, Lindsay Davenport and Maria Sharapova.
Retired Male Legends: Pete Sampras, Björn Borg, John McEnroe, Boris Becker, Stefan Edberg, Pat Cash, and Michael Stich
Retired Female Legends: Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert

I personally think the game's perfect as is, except the online's a bit sucky if you're Australian like me.
 
JasonUresti said:
Unlike sports such as pro basketball, football and American football , and baseball, in tennis there is no player's union to go through to negotiate likeness rights, nor do the players have contracts with any team structure that would call for such a group. Tennis players are independent workers, therefore you would need to approach each one separately to make a video game deal.

Same thing if you want to use real tournaments, arenas and racquets. You would need separate deals with the US Open, Wimbledon, the ATP, racquet makers like Babolat, Wilson, and so on.
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I think people know WHY, specifically, it's difficult (also, don't forget the international nature of the sport), but I don't see why they don't make a definitive game at generation's end or something. Writers used to hype the games, so I bet developers could generate excitement once every 5 years or so. The fees probably aren't as expensive as soccer's or football's, so it wouldn't be out of the question, right?
 
I don't know if you're aware of this, but people who play tennis games have seen so many iterations of the formula that they're not really comfortable with varying degrees of skill among the controllable players.


In other words, when you play a tennis game, you expect your guy's reaction time to match your own.
 
Zep said:
TS3 had to be the worst tennis game I've ever played. Tennis on rails? Fuck you PAM.
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Poor PAM... :)

I'm not quite surprised by the lack of support with Top Spin 3, it is a very, VERY difficult game to get into, and the online mode completely destructs the gameplay with unbalanced players and lag issues. However (it's only my opinion and the opinion of a good friend I play with, both on virtual and real courts) it's one of the most realistic tennis games ever made. It's quite simple : almost every time, our end match stats (winners, faults, service percentages, etc.) are like what you can see with ATP matches on TV. The way we play, the rallies look realistic, minus some little bugs (reactivity on lobs for instance). The learning curve is abrupt but when you understand all the combos, I personnaly think it's an excellent game. Quite alone in this topic right now.:lol

But there is a lot of other good tennis games out there today. Virtua Tennis 3 is very good, Grand Slam Tennis can be surprisingly deep, and even the last Smash Court can be (briefly:D ) fun. But yeah, it's true that there's never enough real players in all these games.

To conclude, I would say that if you're not obsessed with tennis, Rockstar nailed the racket gameplay with Table Tennis and it's really cheap today. Best online gameplay in the genre IMO, but nobody's playing it anymore.
 
Tennis games are more like for the elites, I think. It's not something the masses swallow like football or basketball.

*puts on monocle*
 
Diamond_4444 said:
Poor PAM... :)

I'm not quite surprised by the lack of support with Top Spin 3, it is a very, VERY difficult game to get into, and the online mode completely destructs the gameplay with unbalanced players and lag issues. However (it's only my opinion and the opinion of a good friend I play with, both on virtual and real courts) it's one of the most realistic tennis games ever made. It's quite simple : almost every time, our end match stats (winners, faults, service percentages, etc.) are like what you can see with ATP matches on TV. The way we play, the rallies look realistic, minus some little bugs (reactivity on lobs for instance). The learning curve is abrupt but when you understand all the combos, I personnaly think it's an excellent game. Quite alone in this topic right now.:lol

But there is a lot of other good tennis games out there today. Virtua Tennis 3 is very good, Grand Slam Tennis can be surprisingly deep, and even the last Smash Court can be (briefly:D ) fun. But yeah, it's true that there's never enough real players in all these games.

To conclude, I would say that if you're not obsessed with tennis, Rockstar nailed the racket gameplay with Table Tennis and it's really cheap today. Best online gameplay in the genre IMO, but nobody's playing it anymore.
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Are you serious? Even Mario Tennis 64 plays more realistically. In TS3, it feels like your player has his feet tied together. Everyone has the same exact strokes, and the strokes look like the way a rookie just slaps at a ball. The points play out almost exactly the same each time. Good luck trying to run around a backhand to hit a winner up the line. The game pretty much forces you to hit a backhand. The serves hardly have any pace. As ridiculous as that game is, I feel like I could construct points more realistically in Virtua Tennis 3 than in Top Spin 3. Only things Top Spin 3 has going for it are graphics and official licenses.
 
H_Prestige said:
Are you serious? Even Mario Tennis 64 plays more realistically. In TS3, it feels like your player has his feet tied together. Everyone has the same exact strokes, and the strokes look like the way a rookie just slaps at a ball. The points play out almost exactly the same each time. Good luck trying to run around a backhand to hit a winner up the line. The game pretty much forces you to hit a backhand. The serves hardly have any pace. As ridiculous as that game is, I feel like I could construct points more realistically in Virtua Tennis 3 than in Top Spin 3. Only things Top Spin 3 has going for it are graphics and official licenses.
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As I said it's purely based on my experience with the game, but yeah, I'm serious.
I wish we could be in the same place to discuss this in front of the game, I think it's gonna be difficult to change our minds here.:D But yeah, realistic end match stats, the rallies can be really different if you use the combos with the right timing (basic strokes+RB,LB,RT or LT) and the serves seem pretty effective to me.

I don't want to defend this game to the death, just wanted to show that some people like it. :)
 
H_Prestige said:
3023xy0.jpg


Still the best. Minus Fed, a pretty damn good roster too, along with actual sponsors and grand slams. Tennis games this gen are abominations.
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Been playing this the last few days. So good. Had to go back to playing my PS2 after my PS3 broke. Still good times.
 
H_Prestige said:
3023xy0.jpg


Still the best. Minus Fed, a pretty damn good roster too, along with actual sponsors and grand slams. Tennis games this gen are abominations.
Click to expand...

Must be a curse to be on the cover. Ferrero became a nobody. :lol
 
Diamond_4444 said:
To conclude, I would say that if you're not obsessed with tennis, Rockstar nailed the racket gameplay with Table Tennis and it's really cheap today. Best online gameplay in the genre IMO, but nobody's playing it anymore.
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Yes. Rockstar Table Tennis is amazing.
 
What I don't get is why people often recommend previous iterations of a tennis game over the sequel. Is this due to higher expectations for a sequel or do devs genuinely not know what makes a tennis game fun?
 
SapientWolf said:
What I don't get is why people often recommend previous iterations of a tennis game over the sequel. Is this due to higher expectations for a sequel or do devs genuinely not know what makes a tennis game fun?
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Actually it's due to developers sometimes thinking they can reinvent the wheel and create a gameplay engine which is more intuitive or rewarding.

The truth is people just want out of their tennis games something that makes you feel like you are the player, like you're watching it on TV and living through your favorite tennis icon.

Tennis, unlike almost every other sport, is not something which is fun to simulate accurately in a video game.
 
Kozak said:
Yeah you heard me. Whats with the crappy licensing? All other sports game include just about every known player to man so whats with Tennis? We don't even get a top 50 god damn.
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The names of the characters don't match up with the names of real people? That's horrible! Too horrible to even imagine!
 
I actually like tennis games a lot, just hasn't been a good enough one recently to warrent a purchase.
 
Virtua Tennis 3 has Federer, Nadal, Roddick, Monfils. I'm good.

I just wish Sampras had made it into Virtua Tennis 1 or 2 :(

Top Spin had Sampras.
 
Like other people have touched on, the problem with tennis games is that they feel like elaborate versions of pong rather than the sport. The biggest problem is the lack of focus on footwork and technique, but those are obviously difficult to implement in a way players can pick up in just a short session.

Having the pros is irrelevant if they can't even get the gameplay right.
 
Virtua Tennis on the Dreamcast was fun, but that might be a bit clouded with the fact that I had to use my 2 light guns as controllers 3 and 4, and it was cool using a gun to play tennis.
 
Mario Tennis GBA and GBC are the best tennis games ever made, no contest.

Wii Sports, Mario Tennis N64 & GCN and Virtua Tennis 1 and 2 follow behind. The rest are left in the dust.
 
A collective "you're wrong!" from

Virtua Tennis 3 (PS3/360/PC)
Virtua Tennis World Tour (PSP)
Mario Tennis: Power Tour (GBA)

I don't think I've ever spent more time in sports game than in Mario Tennis, played that game until my blisters got blisters.
 
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