First real-world footage of upcoming Mario Tennis Open game for 3DS

If you thought Nintendo's teaser trailer for its forthcoming title Mario Tennis Open was, well, 'ace', then unzip your virtual racket's case in preparation for a new video of the game.

At last week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, GameTrailers shot two minutes of footage from Mario Tennis Open (posted below), which shows a match playing out between long-time ape buddies Donkey and Diddy Kong.

The player in the vid was using the 3DS's D-pad to control Diddy's movements around the court, and tapping the touchscreen to choose which shot to play.

From what we can make out underneath the player's awkwardly (for us) placed thumb, the shot list includes lob, topspin, drop shot, slice, simple shot, and flat shot.

It also looks like you can cycle through three different versions of the shot choice interface, although on-screen symbols would indicate that you can use the face buttons to play shots, as well.

The analogue stick, meanwhile, seems to be used to control the camera, with an upward nudge causing the view to swoop in close to the action, and a downward nudge pulling the view back.

Mario Tennis Open will bounce onto North American 3DS courts on May 24th, and onto European courts the following day.

Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on