orok oh heck yeah, as a once-mediocre junior tennis player myself, I’ve always wanted a truly simulatory tennis video game but mostly disappointed in the execution of the games out there. I don’t think anything actually stacks up to the kind of strategy, pacing, and nuance you get from actual tennis. Until a AAA VR game comes out I don’t think any tennis game is going to really do it justice. I’ve played that “Table Tennis VR” and it’s getting there, but it needs some feedback when you hit the ball and some space to run around.
Gameboy Tennis is my nostalgic game that I blindly loved even though it’s probably objectively terrible bargain-bin quality. But after Pokemon came out I got a link cable and one of my neighbors happened to have this game so we would occasionally play together. I can’t imagine we played more than 1-2 hours cumulatively though. The smaller court here feels better to me than any NES or SNES tennis game on the big screen but it’s probably just because it’s what I grew up with.
Oh hey is that Jump Man?

In terms of real-deal simulation tennis games, I think its gotta be Top Spin 4 on the Playstation 3, right? On the court it’s great. It plays smooth and the physics feel right. It was also back when theycould license all the best tennis players and grand slam tournaments in the game without having to rely on user-created content. One time I smoked a little “medicine” and I thought I was actually playing in the French open for the entire tournament.
My dream tennis game, much like Top Spin 4, has a career mode where you can micromanage the player even on off days. It’s not enough to just play the tennis Grand Slam, I like to have to manage my character’s jet lag from a long flight. Being a tennis player is not just about your performance on the court, it’s also about signing brand deals with Rolex and doing stilted TV interviews and jet-setting to a party in Monte Carlo with the global elite. The life of an elite tennis player is a legitimately weird existence and I love when there’s life-sim elements to a tennis game.
