Sprt: Tennis Critters [by Nerdriot]

Game Review: Tennis Critters
Release: May 30, 2003
Genre: Sports
Publisher:  Garage Games
Developer: Nerdriot
System Requirements: Windows 95/98/SE/ME/2000/XP, Pentium II® 400, 64 MB RAM, OpenGL compatible graphics card, DirectX 8.0 or greater, 11 MB free hard drive space
Price: US $19.95

At the first opportunity to play Tennis Critters, I jumped. I have to admit that I'm a huge sports fan. My primary game has always been baseball, but with every game system I've owned, I've gone out of my way to cover all the major sports on the system. One of the difficulties of Independent games is the lack of Sports games in the industry. It is perhaps due to the impossibility of getting star athletes into independent games due to budget constraints.

Nerdriot took care of this problem deftly by replacing all the tennis players in Tennis Critters with woodland creatures. Instead of smashing the ball with Sampras and Agassi, you get to womp it with Jed the brown chipmunk and Furlo the gray chipmunk. While the critter idea may be a bit too family friendly for some people's tastes, it does offer a good backdrop for this fun and easy to pick up game.

Tennis critters offers you the ability to play as one of the many differently colored chipmunks in either a park or woodland tennis court. Unlike the clay and grass courts you may be used to in other Tennis games, these two courts don't affect the way that the ball bounces in either speed or height. While that is disappointing, the two courts do offer a somewhat varied backdrop to play on.

Play can include up to 4 players on the same court in a doubles match, each of which can be human or computer. In fact, I'd recommend the doubles over the singles as you first begin as the game is a bit more difficult that you might first envision, and your computer team mate will likely save your bacon more than a few times as you get down the controls. Actually, the one thing I really wished I could do while playing was smack my team mate with my racket. Not during play of course, but every so often he would do something bone-headed like run to the net while I was already there, leaving us open to lobs over our heads. I think a couple of good wacks with the racket in-between serves would have relieved my frustration, and perhaps even fit in with the cartoon nature of the game if it was done correctly.

Despite the fact that the game is clearly set up as more of a for fun that a simulation, Tennis Critters does a good job of offering purists each of the facets of the sport that they love. At the beginning of the game you can choose how many sets you will play. All scoring is carried out as you would expect in tennis, with Dueces, Match Points, and Tie-Breaking Sets to help drive your exhaustion to the edge.  Furthermore, the number of different hits you have at your availability is quite large.  You can put topspin on the ball, slice it, lob it, or smash it. 

Game play is not extremely fast, so I found myself setting the number of MATCHES to one most of the time to keep from eating up too many hours in my day as each game takes roughly 3 minutes to play. While that may not seem like a lot, if you run through 3 sets before ending a match, you will likely have played for more than an hour. Thankfully the game keeps track of how far you have progressed against your opponents so that you can continue on against the harder opponents the next time you begin the game, but the tournaments are another question entirely as you must win the entire three round tournament before turning off the machine. For purists who want a full 3-set match, that will probably add up to a 3 hour marathon that will feel as exhausting as a real Tennis tournament.

One definite recommendation I have for the game is that you make the ball size larger and the speed "FAST!"  While you might be a little intimidated, I found the game to be much more fun on a higher speed as the action was that much quicker.  If you are looking for a good challenge, you can increase the difficulty up a few notches, but be aware that doing so may not lead to long volleys, but to the computer quickly dispatching your sorry but back to the forest.

As should be the case, the name of the game is fun with cute animations and simple game play dominating over endless options and photo-realistic graphics. Not to state that the graphics are bad as they certainly are not. The game play also leaves a wide amount available to the player. While the game only uses 4 buttons to accomplish a variety of different hits, the player can customize the game by assigning each different hit to a specific button on their joystick. Thus your over-hand and back-hand could each have their own button, leaving their use completely up to your discretion. Otherwise, they can be accessed by pressing specific directions on the joystick while pressing one of the hit buttons.

Unfortunately, I recently picked up a copy of the now slightly dated Virtua Tennis by Sega just a couple of months ago, so playing Tennis Creatures, I couldn't help but think back to the many varied game-play modes on that game and really the greater depth of game play in every respect as opposed to what I found in Tennis Creatures. Trying to keep the fact that Virtua Tennis is made as a simulation and Tennis Creatures is more of a for fun game has helped some when comparing the two in my mind, but I think it leads me to score Tennis Creatures lower than I might otherwise, and people just looking for a good time with a sports game will likely rate Tennis Creatures even higher than I have.

Tennis Creatures is a very enjoyable game, that I spent about 3 straight days playing to get a better feel for...but also just to play. While reviewing games, there are many games that I play once, and then wait a month or more to play again, doing so due to the need to do a review. With Tennis Creatures, it was the first thing I flipped on after coming home from work each day, and I jumped in with great anticipation as I tried to work my way through all the offered opponents and also tried to capture the Acorn Cup...only to have it hover above me for a minute and then...well I'll let you see it for yourself, but it is well worth the effort to see!

Graphics: 8
The overall look of the game is very cartoon-like and the graphics do a great job of conveying that feeling to the player. Some obviously lacking graphics, such as racket strings, may bother gamers but certainly do not take away from the overall feel of the game or the graphic experience. I was happy to see the ball respond to tree stumps in the background that were off of the court. Each of the characters sways a bit as they are waiting and moving about, and even the shadows respond to the graphic motions of the characters.  There is a button you can hit whenever there isn't action going on the court that will cause your character to do a preset animation...I nearly made a game of seeing how many times I could get through the animation between serves.  All the lettering is clear and easy to read, and overall, I feel that there is little more I could ask for in the graphics of a tennis game.

Sound: 6
While some may appreciate it, I found the music in the background to be utterly annoying. It was much more fun to play with the sound off and one of my favorite albums coming over my stereo. Don't know if that is intended or if the developers just had trouble getting background music, but it certainly leaves much to be desired. The sound effects were great in and of themselves and offered everything you could ask for in tennis sound effects.

Game Play: 9
With any sport with lots of subtleties putting them all in the game can be very difficult.  Game makers often choose between making the game realistic and turning off the average gamer, and making them arcade-like turning off the purist fans of the game.  Tennis Critters has made a perfect mix of the two, providing a game that offers the subtleties of tennis while also making it a fun and easy to pick up arcade game.  Sports games tend to be difficult with the keyboard, and while you can get by with the keyboard in Tennis Critters, it really shines with a game pad.

Options: 9
The game offers many options, including multiple camera angles, multiple detail and resolution settings, different game speeds, different game modes, and the ability to turn that annoying background music off.  I unfortunately wasn't able to try out a network game, but the interface seemed really clean, and I'm sure once a few more people get the game, the network option will be great.

Concept:  8
A bit borrowed perhaps from Mario Tennis that took the same though of making tennis more friendly to non-tennis fans.  Network play is the main addition that it brings to the world of Cute Character Tennis.

Fun: 9
I dove right in to Tennis Critters and had a blast.  Speeding the game up made it even more fun in my mind.  The only drawback to the fun is I found myself waiting for the match to be over so I could try out the next opponent.  That is certainly not a bad thing as it shows how ancy I was to continue playing the game.  Trying hooking up 4 players all huddled around your computer, and you'll have even more fun and an even harder time putting it down. 

Overall: 8
Tennis Critters is an excellent game that stacks up to the best of the sports genre in independent games and may be the champion of that field.  It will keep any gamer spell-bound with its bright graphics and fun game play for days on end.  Perhaps a little pricey for some at the $19.99 price-tag, but certainly offers more than enough features to make up for the few extra dollars it will take out of your pocketbook.Added: June 9th 2003
Reviewer: The Mole
Score:
Related Link: Tennis Critters Info
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