By:
Gremlin

One of the worst things about Tennis must be those horrible shell suits and tight white shorts that tennis players are kitted out in on the professional circuit. Without sounding off like we're fashion gurus, at Sharky Extreme, we just don't think polyester suits are trendy. Alas, with Gremlin Interactive's Actua Tennis you'll be able to play tennis in the comfort of your home- either on a PC (or against a wall if you have a big enough one?). Plus you can keep any tight white shorts, leisure suits and headbands firmly where they belong- in the attic. Game set and match to Gremlin Interactive for that then.

But back to Actua Tennis, which is Gremlin Interactive's latest addition to the Actua Sports range, which is currently sparring it out with EA Sports' own squad of sports titles. Tennis games on the PC have served up a double fault in the past. Elementary graphics have usually been thrown together with rather simplistic and poor gameplay. However, spellbinding 3D graphics and immersive gameplay are two characteristics that Gremlin Interactive find as easy to serve up as a couple of aces. They've done it before in the rest of their Actua Sports series, and they've done it again for Actua Tennis- well sort of.

Gremlin Interactive's Actua Sports 3D engine looks the part. 3Dfx and PowerVR owners will find themselves in their element via some fogging, real-time shadows and solid external objects with their Z-Buffers (a D3D version is also there for those that want it). The smooth shading, translucency and bilinear filtering provides Actua Tennis with a fairly polished look yet to be seen in any previous tennis games on the PC (not that I play them much you understand!). As with Actua Soccer et al., the tennis players themselves have been animated using the latest motion captured technology giving the feeling of fluid movement. Even the ball boys, line judges and umpires have been given the full monty in terms of motion capture treatment. The matches themselves are played in true 3D courts, reminiscent of EA's Virtual Stadium Technology. By moving the camera anywhere that takes your fancy, you're able to play tennis from any angle or viewpoint humanly imaginable.