Perfect Ace: Pro Tournament Tennis

Does the PC need another Tennis game? Oxygen Interactive thinks we do, so here's Perfect Ace Pro Tournament Tennis. On first viewing, the graphics are passable, with a variety of nicely rendered courts and reasonably detailed player graphics. The crowd, however, is 2D and about as attractive as a the plebs that scream "come on Tim" at Wimbledon. Furthermore, there are only three modes: Single Match, Tournament and Championship Not so good, than Adding insult to injury is the fact that the keyboard controls are difficult to learn, although once mastered the game becomes pathetically simple in easy and medium modes, and even in hard mode you can win most points with one strategy and one shot. So much for the 'Ultra-Real Tennis Experience' promised by the packaging.

The doubles games are annoying due to your crappy Al partners, who constantly miss easy shots and there are no female tennis players either. The ball animations are hideously annoying, at times defying the laws of physics, although strangely the players move quite realistically.

This game isn't worth your money, try Virtua Tennis instead.

Tennis has always had a rough ride transitioning into video games where other sports like golf and even volleyball to a lesser degree have found some success. Part of the reason is that the game's finer points are difficult to capture and often tennis games can become repetitious and boring. Perfect Ace Pro Tournament is able to make some strides, especially in the doubles mode, but long term play inevitably runs out of steam.

Perfect Ace Pro Tournament does a number of things to help reduce the repetitive nature that can creep into tennis games, with 16 courts in various locations, 32 tennis players to select from, and a tournament, championship, and single match mode. Unfortunately, the rest of the game has problems that range from frustrating to distracting and make it difficult to enjoy for any period of time. For example the control system is incredibly simple with three keys controlling lob, top spin, and slice hits. With that being basically the extent of your options and since variations of those shots are nonexistent, the gameplay becomes static and inflexible especially in singles matches. Other notable issues include commentary that consists of a minimal set of phrases and multiplayer options that require both players to squeeze onto the same keyboard and try to play a match.

One area that played surprisingly well however was the doubles mode where the AI controlled your two opponents and the other player on your team. Although the same gameplay issues still existed, the AI did seem to understand how to play the game and did things like cover the open court and poach for the ball at the net at appropriate times.

The graphics also weren't as bad as they could have been with players that at least looked somewhat natural on the court. The overall detail was definitely on the weaker side however and there were only options for 640x480x16 and 640x480x32 to make things worse.

Perfect Ace Pro Tournament is hardly going to revolutionize tennis video games and falls into the same traps as other tennis games before it. Unless you're a die hard tennis fan, I'd stay clear of this one.