Welcome to our review of Tennis World Tour, a game that promises realistic Tennis on a modern day console.
The new standard developed by veterans of tennis simulations: play as one of 30 professional tennis players, learn all the shots, master each type of surface and experience a realistic career mode. Define your style of play and tactics to become n°1 in the world!
That is the official talk about this game. A game promising a lot and in my review, I will try my best to describe both good and bad that I encountered. Let us start with the good, the variety of options provided by the game. Whether it is playing on gravel or hard court, the stages look realistic and feel like the real deal in every way.
The tennis players are also the real names, from Goffin to Nadal and back to Federer. But the real fun is in career mode, where you are the main star. Career mode pretty much delivers everything it sets out to be. Purchasing sports equipment, hiring staff and managers, training for tournaments and so forth. The variety in this part of the game is its main attraction because sadly it is.
When you move out of the comfort of career mode, you are hit with the issues that this game has. As fun as career mode proves to be, the basic “rest” is not fun. I am Belgian, so I picked David Goffin, the current highest ranked player on the roster. I know what he looks like in real life as I have been lucky enough to meet him in real life before. In the game, he looks like an old man. He really is an unfinished character as several others are too.
When you finally get down to playing the game, you are hit with even more disappointment. Imagine trying 20 drop shots not to get a single one over the net? I often fouled the net on my first serve and even my second one flunked often enough. I have played my fair share of Tennis games before, but there is something about this game that is just wrong.
The players move around very unnaturally, I often felt players to be missing the ball but hitting it dead on. It felt confusing, really confusing. Very unnatural and overall just wrong. It often felt this game was not complete yet.
Another thing that really bothered me, the commentary during the game. I remember my first two lines being exactly the same. How can that be? I mean seriously, this should not be possible, one was a hit in the net and the other was an amazing pass, both getting the same credits…
In conclusion, this game needs work, a lot of it. I played it on Xbox One, where it supposedly runs the best, but I must say… I disagree, this can simply not be the best version, it is clunky at best. I would gladly revisit this game if the majority of issues get ironed out, but for now, this game is just getting a passing grade at 55%. I am giving it the benefit of the doubt because of career mode. If that does not interest you though, I think you are best to stay away from this game.
My rating is 55%
