Centre Court Tennis

It took until late 1998 for the N64 to finally get a tennis game in Centre Court Tennis by Hudson. In true Hudson style, Centre Court Tennis is familiarly Japanese, and cartoony in appearance. And whilst this is arcade-style tennis at heart, the game has a surprising amount of technical depth to it that makes for some thrilling gameplay.

Centre Court Tennis features typical tournament, exhibition and practice modes, but just as important are its challenge and mini-game modes and create-a-character function. The latter was perhaps the the best seen on the console at the time, and remains impressive; stats can be fine-tuned and you can even dress up your character with new clothes and accessories earned in the aforementioned modes. Challenge mode has you compete against rival AI characters, gambling one of your own costume pieces for a chance to win one of theirs, and the mini-games include fun breaks from regular tennis that double as practice, such as court bingo and barrel shooting. The quirky Japanese touches to the game's content set it far apart from the plethora of cookie-cutter sports titles on the N64.

The game's controls are simple, yet shots must be aimed using the control stick if you want to win. There's no aiming cursor per-se, but an intuitive flick or nudge of the stick will alter the ball's course both upon hitting and for a short time after hitting it. Conversely, returning the ball takes even more practice. I found it difficult to judge the position of the ball at times based on perception of its depth. The indicator of a ball's bounce is unfortunately a 2D sprite 'puff', which doesn't help. Bounce and height markers can be turned on in the game's options, but I found these distracting and unhelpful, ironically. This is noticeably more difficult when playing at the top of the screen, where ball speed feels slightly warped due to the perspective. In single player, though, you do have the option to flip the view. There's also a third-person 'player' cam which works surprisingly well, and a novelty, nauseating 'ball' cam which follows the ball through the air.

Courts in Centre Court Tennis are set across a variety of international locations and surfaces. Surfaces affect ball-bounce, and there are even a handful of novelty surfaces in the game, such as lava, on which the ball will leave dangerous flames in position after bouncing.

The game's sound and music are decent, the jarring sound a bouncing ball makes excepted, and I like that the game's hasty translation to English resulted in the Japanese announcers being left in. The graphics are best described as basic, but the frame rate is solid.

Despite its flaws, Centre Court Tennis is a surprisingly fun little game, challenging yet very rewarding and oddly addictive.