Previous Next

Some of you may remember a company called Bug Byte, best known for their graphics adventure game Twin Kingdom Valley. They went bankrupt quite a while back but surprise surprise, they've been rescued by Argue Press Software and are back as a budget software house. Their first offering is Tennis.

Although this type of game proliferated on most computers a couple of years back, this is the first of its kind to emerge for the BBC.

The screen shows a tennis court and two players in forced 3D. The player at the top of the screen is controlled by the computer and the one at the bottom may be moved left, right, up and down by you. It's up to you to make the player run up to the ball and press the space bar at the appropriate time in order to make him take a swing at the ball. I'm not going to explain the rules of tennis but suffice to say, this game follows a simplified set.

The players are represented by larger multicoloured characters and the animation is commendable. Unfortunately, they flicker intolerably. The same can be said of the ball. The documentation left a lot to be desired as well. Although the rules of the real game are explained, the rules of the computer game aren't. You are not told how you're meant to control the direction of the ball and I found myself simply making the player wander along towards the ball was in the general vicinity of the player - not exactly skilful playing. As far as I know, there is no option for you to force backhands, top spins etc. Perhaps I'm expecting slightly too much from a piece of budget software but I would strongly suggest you look at it before you buy it.

Matthew Fifield