My bedroom closet was a keeper of memories.
Before the room belonged to me, it belonged to my middle brother, Matt. And before Matt, my oldest brother Dave laid claim to the room. Although the residents came and went with time, the closet continued to accumulate items, going unkempt.
And at eight years old, I watched Narnia and decided I should see if my closet held a portal to a different world.
It didn’t.
But there was a tennis racket. Not the most worldly kid ever, I rushed to my mom to ask what it was. She tried out for the high school team but didn’t make it.
We found another racket and took to our driveway to try tennis out. And I was hooked immediately. For the next decade, we travelled the American South playing tournaments, chasing ranking points, and eating tons of fast food.
But there was always one problem. I lived far away from where I needed to train, and both of my parents worked, which made the whole traveling part difficult. I would typically only get to practice once a week.
So in my free time, I played tennis video games. I think I might have literally played every tennis franchise. First, Virtua Tennis. I owned all of them, but they were a bit too arcadey for me. It didn’t feel like how tennis played in real life.
Grand Slam Tennis was fine, but a trip to the net would win the point every single time. Even if you were Nadal. Makes no sense.
But Topspin. Oh boy, Topspin was the masterpiece of my dreams. I remember picking up Topspin 4 and playing it constantly for a year. I would rush home to play the latest grand slam online against opponents from around the country. But after almost a decade (and no Topspin 5 in sight), the game has gotten stale. And too easy. It has devolved into a game of patterns, each player with their own. Figure out their patterns, and you can win everytime. Don’t give Murray a short angle, trust me.
So without further ado, Smash Court Tennis 2. TLDR? If you play tennis and are tired of Topspin, you’ll like this one. It mixes the simulation and physics of Topspin 4 with the freedom and arcade-like variety of Virtua Tennis. Timing shots isn’t easy like in Topspin or Virtua. You don’t get to “load” your forehand by holding the button and releasing it at the right time. You have to press the button precisely as the ball gets in your strike zone to get a well-timed shot, which makes for quite the challenge.
The pace of play is fast. Much faster than Topspin, but a bit slower than Virtua Tennis. Either way, the pacing of the points gives decisions a real stake. In Topspin, it can feel extremely difficult to hit a ball out. And the differences between a flat ball or a topspin shot feel minuscule when you see the opponent react to your shot. Somehow, Smash Court captures the magic of the out-of-nowhere, low-percentage shot. The backhand winner on the run. The flat passing shot as Safin pushes the net. The winners stay with you in your mind, and the misses do too. Go for a flat shot on defense? Expect to miss it or have no time to recover for the next shot. Just like in real tennis. Smash Court’s gameplay feels the most like real tennis of any tennis video game I have played, with points varying in quality, length, and pattern fairly consistently.
Sidenote – Smash Court 3 is significantly easier than 2. I would stick with 2 for the most playtime.
Sidenote to the sidenote – You can also play matches at the U.S. Open at night. It is a beautiful experience.
The Roster
There are 16 pro players included, plus two unlockable characters from Soul Calibur and two from Tekken (if that is your cup of tea). And they all have adorably young photos (see example Roddick, if you may).
Andy Roddick
Juan Carlos Ferrero
Tim Henman
Lleyton Hewitt
James Blake
Marat Safin
Richard Gasquet
Tommy Haas
Justine Henin
Kim Clijsters
Serena Williams
Amelie Mauresmo
Lindsay Davenport
Jennifer Capriati
Daniela Hantuchova
Anna Kournikova
Modes
As with most sports games, the career mode has the most depth. When you create your player, you jump into the tour at rank #250, which is even further down than Topspin 4. In Topspin, there are only 80 real and computer generated players on the tour. I haven’t investigated whether Smash Court manipulates the numbers to have less than 250 players overall by only having you play opponents at specific ranks (I would bet it does), but it still feels deeper. All 4 grand slams are licensed, and you can play through the qualifiers to get the large tournaments your ranking won’t qualify you for automatically. There is also a Davis Cup!
If you are a tennis player, you will probably need to dig into the settings to really enjoy the mode though. It automatically enables something labeled as a “Turning Point” system, which has you play one game in each set (matches are best of five sets in this setting). In each of these games, you are given an objective, such as win two points at the net or win the game in under 90 seconds. You can complete the objective and win the game and still lose the set. It is INFURIATING. But even that aside, there also is a major tennis oversight. Some moments will have you jump in at 0-15 or 15-30 down, but you will still start on the deuce side of the court. That’s what really pushed me to turn things to normal mode. The length of match changes in normal, rookie/minor tournaments are 1 set to 2 games, and it scales up with the level of the tournament.
Finally, the character progression works extremely well. To increase the ability of one shot, it must come at the cost of another. Instead of a level system defined by numbers, your shots are given a grade (A,B,C,D,E). In my experience, getting your forehand up one grade will cost your backhand one. I think this works well to give the game some longevity.
Other modes: Exhibition (singles and doubles, individual matches or a team competition), arcade (play against randomly selected player at different venues), challenge (Virtua Tennis minigames). There is also a trophy room to keep track of your victories.
Final Thoughts: Great game. Will certainly be coming back to this one for my tennis fix.
To find gameplay, check out this video!
Luke's Nostalgia Trip 