When I think of past tennis games, two immediately pop into my mind. The first tennis game that propelled the sport onto consoles in spectacular fashion was of course Virtua Tennis on the SEGA Dreamcast. This title shaped all future tennis games with its trend setting class and excellence. For quite some time I wondered whether anyone would dare take on the challenge to overthrow the mighty Virtua Tennis to crown a new champion of champions and then it finally came along.

Top Spin is one of my favorite, if not the favorite game I have in my Xbox collection and has been since it’s release. It’s perfect control system, fluid gameplay and gorgeous graphics propel this game to the top without hesitation, yet again raising the bar for rival tennis games far higher then ever before.

Outlaw Tennis I should mention from the very start is not meant to take the crown, nor is it going to replace Top Spin, however for people who are wanting something different from their tennis experiences offline and online through Xbox Live will be pondering whether to purchase this title.

The Outlaw games, and there have been quite a few now, star fictional characters which can only be described as the weird and bizarre, feature heavily with funny cut scenes and interesting antics. Although new characters are introduced, the core of the game revolves around people like Summer, a sexy foxy lady who loves to entertain the gents watching the sport.

Gameplay

As already mentioned earlier, this game is no Top Spin, however it does have some clever ideas around it. For instance not only is this a tennis game, but it also equips you with many other mini tennis like games. Although this is still basically tennis, the way in which you get points changes depending on the game variation. ‘Hot Potato‘ is one such game mode where a timer quickly and perilously counts down while you are within your rally. When the timer reaches its final destination expect a very large surprise, yes an explosion in the face! This certainly encourages you and your opponent to aim for a very quick end to a rally rather then playing the long game. Another such game mode, ‘Baseball,‘ forces you to play a baseball type game trying to get around the bases to score a point.

These novel modes are what make the game and although the classic tennis mode is entertaining, you will want to experiment with these extras to get the full value out of Outlaw Tennis. With 7 match modes total including Hot Potato, Casino, Baseball, Football (American), Pinball and Ping Pong – Outlaw Tennis offers quite a bit in the way of entertainment.

There are a total of 16 wacky characters to choose from, although you have to unlock most of them by playing through the Tour and Drill modes. Tour is just as you would imagine it is… well a tour of course where you face classic and the more random assorted game modes. On some you even have to face a doubles partnership… on your own! While the players are less then amazingly intelligent when this mode comes along, however it certainly gets the old brain cells doing their magic. To progress through the entire game you have to run the tour for each character in the game to unlock courses, clothing and all manner of extras. Sadly the tour for each character is pathetically short. To build up your chosen player, you must also run through the ‘drill’ modes. These give you points you can use to gain extra control, power, etc., and are just as insanely odd as the rest of the game, but still good fun for passing away those gaming hours; although it won’t last long as for each player you need to run through the very same drills which becomes boring very quickly.

Of course with all this insanity surrounding Outlaw Tennis, you must have something within the actual gameplay to suit. This is provided by the power shots you can create by holding the ‘right trigger’. Timing is crucial and this is even more important when serving. Oddly far more difficult then Top Spin to gain that super 100% serve power which is a credit to the game really. Not only will the ball explode across the screen with a 100% serve, but before hitting the ball, your character will do all types of summersaults and acrobatics before finally thrashing the flaming ball towards the now cowering opponent.

Control / Playability

Just like many first person shooters have used Halo as a benchmark for their control system, Outlaw Tennis, again to it’s credit, have taken tips from the master of all tennis games ‘Top Spin’ by using ‘A’ as a standard shot, ‘X’ as slice, ‘B’ as top spin and finally ‘Y’ as lob.

You can also apply spin, extra immense power to your shot, and by carefully wangling the analogue stick position your shot with a certain degree of accuracy; and this is the game’s first annoying downfall. You can swear blind that you have aimed the ball to the left or right of the court and then to your amazement the ball decides ‘hey what the hell’ I will ignore you and do my own thing and go in the opposite direction so there. This does not happen very often and maybe this is supposed to be down to your positioning, however the harshness of this can be quite extreme and you can easily lose out on what should be a fairly easy point winner.

I am not totally impressed with how you aim your serve shot. Aiming before you start setting power you feel like you have little control over the serve, instead I would have liked to see positioning of serve while setting power, but hey you can still play effective serves if not totally satisfying as it should have been.

Other shots play well, but you can hit a very descent slew of shots and feel like you are indeed playing a tennis game. It is nowhere near as refined as the leading tennis game for Xbox, but you can still have a lot of enjoyment especially online. Once you overcome the distant feel of responsiveness, you can gain some very credible rallies.

Graphics / Presentation

As you would expect, there are a few courts available and the graphics are just barely sufficient if not a little lackluster at times. Outlaw Tennis is certainly not pushing the Xbox hard enough, but you can enjoy the game even with its less then exciting visuals. The courts are amusing but very little detail has been added to them. The camera sits quite a way back from the action so you would expect to be able to see more of the buildings and objects relating to each course, however instead you find minimal crowds, minimal objects of interest and unfortunately a rather minimal desire to spend time choosing a course as they are all quite bland.

The characters only come alive in the cut-scene moments, however these become annoying very fast and I would recommend anyone to turn these off with immediate effect on purchasing the game. The rest of the time you are quite a distance from the characters therefore any clothing or accessories you unlock are hardly visible and rather pointless.

The menu system is just like any other Outlaw game and does the job, although the menus are quite cluttered so don’t expect to find your online friends list very easily without scrolling for an eternity.

Outlaw Tennis Xbox Screenshot

Outlaw Tennis Xbox Screenshot

View all Outlaw Tennis Screenshots in the XBS Gallery

Audio

A tennis game with commentary is always worrying as it is rare for something including a commentary to pull something out of the bag that will startle you and make you smirk. However, Outlaw Tennis does a fair job of entertaining even if some of the comments are a little crude. Overall the audio is a very important addition to this title, although the included music is a mish-mash that some will love and others will loath. Not the best line-up of music backings I have heard from an Outlaw game, but luckily the rest of the audio stylings within the title are good and maybe backing music within a tennis game is best turned off anyway, unless you want to listen to a custom soundtrack off your hard drive.

Replay Value

With its good selection of game types and satisfying tennis, you can have a good amount of entertainment in single player modes, however taking this puppy online is where you need to be. Make sure you and a friend grab a copy, the single player gaming time available is quite decent, but you really need a brother or sister, or Xbox Live to make your purchase totally worth while.

Don’t get me wrong, people without Xbox Live, or if you are very unfortunate, have no friends, then you can still spend a lot of time playing through the game, but it just doesn’t match up to the excellent online play or the thrill of facing a human opponent which you will be missing.

Overall Score

Overall Score: 6.5/10 [not an average]

Additional Comments

Outlaw Tennis is a credible tennis title not trying to compete with the cream of excellence in Tennis titles like Top Spin, but instead aiming for a more crazy, fun loving audience which this game achieves when playing human opponents. However, playing as ‘Billy no mates’ will not be as rewarding as taking Outlaw Tennis to the people and showing off your crazy moves.

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