Reviewed: June 7, 2010
Reviewed by: Mark Smith

Publisher
Eurocenter

Developer
Eurocenter

Released: May 25, 2010
Genre: Sports
Players: 1-2

5
8
5
5
5.1

Game Info:

I desperately tried to enjoy this game. I desperately tried to play this game. But problems surfaced even as early as the tutorial that was trying to teach me how to play. After coming to the realization that the accelerometer controls were seriously flawed (or broke) I disable tilt in the control options, but the tutorial doesn’t recognize this, so it was still forcing me to “tilt backward” in lesson 4 even though I disabled tilt. No matter how much I tip or tilt my iPad back, neither myself nor any of the other people (and there were several) could get past this lesson.

So I skipped the rest of the tutorial and jumped right into the single-player Tournament mode after turning on the virtual D-pad and shot buttons. Now with a set of arrows to steer my player and a tennis ball icon to swing my racket and put some spin on the ball I was able to play the game…sort of. After choosing a non-licensed fictitious player to represent yourself you pick a difficulty level based on the court surface; hard, clay, or grass. You then go up against a series of other fictional pros in a standard bracket tournament using traditional tennis scoring rules.

The problems continued with glitched controls that had my player warping around my side of the court like crazy. I’d be chasing down a ball headed to my left then suddenly be back in the middle of the court. Other oddities like always having to serve from the center of the back line conflicted with just about every other tennis game I have ever played. The game was obviously designed for touching and tilting, but those inputs are just as flawed as the virtual D-pad and shot button.

I dreaded going online, as I usually like to wait until I have mastered a game offline before tackling strangers over the Internet. There is a nice system to setup your player and even offer up your email and a picture, but the only thing harder than finding somebody to play with online is maintaining a stable connection for an entire game, and even if you do the lag was so bad that players were jumping all over the court and balls were bouncing multiple times before being returned.

It’s a shame the game is unplayable in its current form because the presentation value is excellent with some graphics that fall somewhere between PS2 and PS3. The character animation is a bit jerky, but I have become so used to motion-capture animation that going back to these sprite-style graphics is a huge leap. The game makes some nice transitions from 3D to the standard perspective view from behind the player.

Sound effects are minimal – the sounds of the ball either bouncing on the varied surface or getting whacked with the racket. There is no announcer or trash talk between players, and the music is better left turned off. It’s not horrible, but it is loud and intrusive and gets repetitive really fast.

Ace Tennis 2010 HD has the potential to be a seriously good tennis game for the iPad if Eurocenter can only fix the issues with the controls and tweak their online code for smoother Wi-Fi gameplay. Until then, you’ll have more fun smacking a tennis ball against the side of a building.