Perfect Ace: Pro Tournament Tennis

PS2 review by Jim Smith - Tuesday 29th July 2003

After reading Phil’s review on the PC version of Perfect Ace, I can’t say I was particularly hopeful that the PS2 version was going to be any better. I might even go as far as to say that I wasn’t even looking forward to reviewing it at all, but such is our lot and when you join a team like that at Thunderbolt you have certain obligations to fulfil. It was therefore with great trepidation that I finally amassed the courage to slip the promo CD out of it’s packaging and into my little black box, almost praying that my instincts were going to be wrong and this was going to be pleasant revelation. Sadly, this was not the case.



Therefore, I’m going to rattle through the ins and outs of the game as quickly as I can, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, because you’ve probably read exactly the same criticisms already in the PC review and secondly, because this game really is a waste of everybody’s time. It’s a waste of the developers’ time, a waste of the marketing guys’ time, a waste of the retailers’ time, a waste of your time and a waste of mine.

So let’s round this up. The loading screens are weak, the kind you get from an afternoon playing with a cheap middleware menu developers kit. The options are basic; single match, tournament and championship. No crazy mini games, no extra stuff, just the same options we’ve been used to in Tennis games for the last thirty years. It does have a four player option where you can use PS2 and PSone pads, but that’s nothing to write home about because if it hadn’t, the review would have stopped here anyway. It has no official licenses, no players, no Tennis organizations, no sportswear licenses, nothing. It has twenty odd digitized made-up players from around the world but, man, are they all ugly. And there’s no women either, which makes no sense since it's mostly guys play sports sims and we like looking at female Tennis players in tight fitting outfits, even if it is just in a video game.



Getting in to the actual game and the game mechanics, things don’t get any better. When the game starts, the camera swoops around the stadium to chorus of looped cheers coming from hundreds of cardboard spectators jerkily oscillating between three frames of cheery animations. Next it swings down by the players, revealing the low court, and quite unplayable, default camera angle. A quick check of the options and a better camera later, the game gets going but your enthusiasm certainly doesn't. The player graphics are bad; they all look fat with big feet, and the movement is sluggish. They trudge round the court hitting balls with very random strengths; one minute the shot will be powerful, the next inexplicably weak. Directing it is also a problem, for me it tended to not go where I wanted it or it blasted it the right way but straight out. Returning is no better because the automatic shot select mechanism is awful. Sometimes a fast ball will be coming towards you and your man will go for a slow forehand; too slow, you missed it. Another time a slower ball will float across the court and he’ll go for quick snap shots; too quick, obviously, and you’ll have to hit ‘X’ a few more times before the racket connects. Diving too is lame, it always seems late or completely unnecessary. Finally, serving completes the misery. Tap to throw up, tap to swing and direct, although it’s not as simple as that since directing the ball is as awkward as it is with a standard shot return.



So, all in all, it’s rubbish. If this was a good Tennis game, this would also have been a very different review. Let's face it, Tennis is a perfect sport to be translated into a video game and it's no surprise that one of the first commercially successful video games ever did just that. I am of course talking about Pong, which was originally released way back in 1972, which was before even I was born! In the thirty years since we've seen the racket sport crop up again and again as a video game hit and we've all had some massively funny multiplayer evenings on classics like Virtua Tennis (DC), Sampras Tennis (PSone), Jimmy Connors Tennis (SNES), Super Tennis (SNES), Mario Tennis (N64), etc, etc. This game, though, is so bad that I don't feel it's fair to wax lyrical about these oldies here; I don't think it does their memory justice. Quite frankly I want to get away from this review as soon as possible and get back to playing some real games...
Phil hit the nail on the head with the seasonal release thing; this was an obvious Summer Tennis game cash-in scam (or a Wimbledon cash-in for us Brits) so I’m not going to bang on any more. With games like Virtua Tennis 2 out for the Ps2, why would you want anything else? It’s madness, and personally I feel for the coders. I wonder what it’s like developing something like this knowing it’s going to be crap. Wouldn’t you hate it? Jesus, I would.



At the end of the day, why would anyone buy this game? Maybe it’s the spell of Summer time consumerism? Well, if you think it’s effecting you, repeat this chant after me.

I will not buy crap games like Perfect Ace…
I will not buy crap games like Perfect Ace…
I will not buy crap games like Perfect Ace…
I will not buy crap games like Perfect Ace…

Thunderbolt score: three out of ten

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