0 
0 Tennis On Court is the first and currently only tennis game on the PSVR2 from developer Fishing Cactus and published by Decathlon. It is available on the PSVR2 and Meta Quest.
Tennis On Ice
It has been quite a while since I’ve played tennis in real life. Is Tennis On Court a good substitute or a way to get started playing?
Gameplay
There are quite a few menus in Tennis On Vourt upon booting up the game. You’ll start by creating your character. It’s a basic character customization system that isn’t too complex but you can make someone look unique.
Single-player
There are a few single-player options here ranging from tutorials and practice modes to long tournaments consisting of multiple difficulties and opponents. These take place on different court surfaces across the world that affect how you play slightly. There’s not much to be said about the tutorials, they are a fine way to get you introduced to the mechanics and physics of the game. The issue here lies in the tournaments, while they vary in difficulty on selection, every difficulty feels the exact same and I’m quite sure, is the same. These tournaments don’t respect your or the PSVR2’s time either. A single tournament can take you up to an hour which can drain your battery life on the controllers, and often end up feeling extremely boring when you’re playing against the same AI over and over. The tennis physics in the game are quite impressive, in the single-player mode, I would only occasionally have issues with the detection of my hit strength. The physics here are very realistic, unfortunately, that’s about the only compliment I can give Tennis On Court.
Multiplayer
When I first saw the trailer for Tennis On Court, I figured the selling point of the game would be this feature, playing against friends and randoms in matches sounded extremely fun on paper, and it is…just not in the way the developers were expecting.
My time playing multiplayer was spent laughing at the game for its many issues. Multiplayer just doesn’t work here. Editor-in-Chief Stu and I hopped into a match and decided to test the in-game voice chat. Tennis On Court without a doubt has the worst voice chat in any video game I have ever played, we had to rush back to the party chat in hysterics due to the bass-boosted mess that was the in game chat.
Some New Rules
Multiplayer completely butchers any gameplay systems that work in single-player. You or your opponent will hit the ball way over the length of the court, sometimes going into the crowd and still getting rewarded the point. Occasionally your opponent will hit the net on your side and get the point. Nothing that worked well in single-player works here.
Animations don’t match up with your or your opponent’s movement, instead opting for preset animations on hit. This messed me up on more than one occasion where my online opponent would go for completely different moves than what the ball trajectory was.
Bugs & Glitches
Including the many issues with multiplayer, I experienced quite a few more bugs during my time with the game. On multiple occasions the in-game movement assist would move me away from the ball, prompting me to turn it off. Sometimes the game would just stop after serving, making me restart my game. The ball would be nowhere to be seen.
Graphics & Audio
Tennis On Court is not a looker either, the courts themselves look fine but there are NPCs and crowds that make the game look static and bland. The crowds have models for the first couple of rows, but after that all the members are PNGs.
Audio isn’t a standout. Actions sound how you’d want them to sound and that’s about that.
Longevity
As with any multiplayer game, theoretically, you could play Tennis On Court for quite a long time. But I imagine most will get bored with the AI or annoyed with the extremely poor multiplayer after just a couple of hours.
Final Thoughts
Tennis On Court has just one thing going for it, it’s realistic physics. It seems as though all the effort was put into this one feature, and everything else was left in the dust. With some updates and fixes, and a deep sale, Tennis On Court could be worthy of your time and money. As of now, it isn’t.
That is why I am awarding Tennis On Court the Thumb Culture Bronze Award.
Disclaimer: A code was received in order to write this review.
YouTube | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Discord | Podcast
About Author
