Tennis (Intellivsion, 1980)
Entry posted by Mezrabad
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Tennis (Intellivsion, 1980)
I know I said we were going to do Space Battle but with this being "Wimbledon Weekend" I figured this would be the best chance I'd have of getting my wife to play Intellivision's Tennis with me. She actually consented to join me for about 10 minutes! However, I think that because of the fact that she'd just seen one of the greatest, and longest tennis matches of all-time (Federer vs. Nadal) she just couldn't feel the thrill of our little pixel-fest.
First off, a couple of things I've been noticing about the Intellivision's manuals for the first year of its release. ONE: every manual so far wants to remind you that these games are FOR COLOR TV VIEWING ONLY but that colors on your set may vary slightly from colors described in their little booklet...and TWO: The manuals are uniformly excellent. They acheive this by clearly explaining everything that's in the game.
Notice that I said "everything that's in the game" and not "everything needed to play the game". These aren't documents to just get you up and running, these epistles could serve as design documents because their descriptions of a game's features are so detailed. It might be too much information for those who just want to start playing (*cough*VCS owners*cough*), but for those of us who like knowing what we're doing rather than risk getting frustrated with a game, they're great.
Unfortunately for you, I really feel like talking about the manual first.
The front cover reads like ad copy, and it probably served as such. On most of the Intellivision manuals I've seen so far (if not all) there's also an all-cap bold statement: HOW TO WIN. which basically says if you want to win, read the fine manual.
Once inside the booklet there's a brief description of the object of the game (yes, even for well known games like Tennis) before going over the equipment setup; from checking the hook-ups for the Intellivision MASTER COMPONENT to inserting the Tennis overlays into the controllers.
Getting into the game itself, the manual takes two pages to outline the actual rules for a "real world" game of Tennis. It explains the scoring system (for which I blame the French), the serving procedure and the boundaries. It even explains something called a "let" which is when the ball hits the net during a serve. My wife has watched Wimbledon for the last 18 years I've known her and I've never heard that term even once...probably because I usually have my headphones on and I'm at the computer, but that's another story.
Anyway, the manual then gets into explaining the controller layout for another page before launching into a detailed explanation of gameplay execution. Pages 5 to 21 are all about what happens in the game and how the players control it. This is followed by an explanation for every sound effect, another review of the game rules, tips for winning and a Tennis glossary.
If you've never played or seen a game of real world tennis in your life, you could read the Intellivision's manual for its Tennis cartridge and you'd be able to walk yourself through a complete game of tennis in the real world without sounding clueless. I'm not saying you wouldn't look completely clueless; learning what your body is supposed to do is different from knowing the specialized semiotic domain of a subject, of course.
Across the board, from what I've seen, Intellivision presents the same quality manual for Tennis, Horse Racing, NFL Football, Auto Racing, Poker & Blackjack, Armor Battle and Major League Baseball. I speculate that the good Blue Sky Rangers knew they were writing for first-time videogame system owners, i.e. anyone that hadn't gone out and gotten an Atari yet, and they didn't want anyone to get frustrated for lack of clear instructions.
About the actual game: it's two-player only! No single player version on this cart. 
Playing alone using both controllers is right out of the question and don't think I didn't try. So this is another game for which I had to recruit the long-suffering members of my family. As mentioned above, my wife (43) joined me for about 10 minutes, as did my daughter (6) for about three minutes and my son (10) for about 20. As interesting and well done as I thought the game was, they just couldn't share my enthusiasm.
At the title screen, you have an opportunity to choose the speed of the game by pressing 1, 2, or 3 on the controller. 3 is Beginner, 2 is "Club", 1 is "Pro". Default (if you just hit the disc without pressing a number) is "Wimbledon". For the record, starting off with Beginner was painfully slow, while Wimbledon was just a tad too fast. We stuck with Pro and had a comfortable time learning, though not comfortable enough for anyone to stick around very long. Maybe I just smell...?
The screen presents a sideways view of the court, Red player on the left, Blue player on the right. (Red vs. Blue again!) Red serves first. Red's player serves by selecting a serving area using their controller keypad (Inner, Center or Outer). This sets the server up in the proper position and gives them the ball (which appears in their hands). They hit one of their swing buttons to toss the ball in the air and a swing button again to hit it. The game gives you two options for your swing. Hard and Soft. The soft swing gives you a greater chance of hitting the ball so that it stays within the boundaries of the court, but at the same time this gives your opponent a gentle lob that's easy to return. The hard swing nails the ball, but if you don't time it correctly you'll fault by serving the ball out-of-bounds, or by missing the ball on your swing (whiff!). If your opponent sends you a lob and you return it with a hard swing, it gives you an opportunity for a SMASH. A SMASH has a nice satisfying feeling to it and causes the creepy, vaguely-minimized human faces in the crowd to cheer, but visually retain their stoic impassivity.
For some reason, the faces in the crowd remind me of the 60's British TV series, "The Prisoner". Dark, deep eye sockets on every member of the cloned audience follow the ball's every move. I get chills just thinking about it. Now for the Intellivision...Nightmare Tennis!
The game provides a shadow for the ball to allow you to track it more easily which, I would venture to guess, makes this a 3D game in the same way Atari's Basketball was. The shadow is a good indicator of where the ball is going to go as the ballistic path of the actual ball can be confusing given the lack of apparent screen-depth. (Does that make sense?) Anyway, the manual says to watch the shadow, so that's what I do.
In addition to using a Hard or Soft swing, how you time your swing and where in your swing the racket actually hits the ball will determine towards what side of the court the ball will go when you return it. We didn't get good enough to actually do anything with this information, but it's good to know it's there for when we reach a "higher level" of play.
In real tennis, the winner of a full match is determined by the first to win three out of five sets. The winner of a set is the player who wins at least six games first and win two games more than their opponent. The winner of a game is determined by the first to score at least four points and have at least two points more than their opponent. Intellivision's Tennis follows these scoring procedures and a full match can take a little while to play. I don't know how long this actually does take because both my son and my wife were anxious to do something else after the first set. I suppose if you wanted to simulate today's record setting 12-to-15-games-long sets in Wimbledon Gentlemen's Finals 2008, you could, but I wouldn't recommend it unless there's a big check and a heavy looking plate involved.
Two things about controlling your Tennis player: First thing, the disc: You use the 16-point directional disc to move your player around the court. This is actually not unpleasant because your on-screen persona ALWAYS faces the net. Moving them with the disc just pushes them around the court and isn't at all frustrating. Either the designers used the disc better in this game than the others we've played or our thumbs are getting used to it.
Second thing, the side buttons: What is frustrating is the buttons on the sides of these Intellivision II controllers, there just isn't any feedback or play in them to give you a clear indication of when you're actually activating it. It's not a deal-breaker but I look forward to being used to them...someday.
Next entry I'll do Space Battle, which is for one OR two player, unless I decide to do something else. (22730)
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