Tour Champion Tennis

When we think of tennis, we think of warm summer afternoons, strawberries and cream, and the gentle thwacking sound of a racket connecting with a tennis ball. Perhaps interrupted by the odd noisy grunt if it's Maria Sharapova playing.

A tennis game can't be expected to capture the sunny rays, but our favourite examples do reproduce those solid wallops and the carefully honed placing of balls. They're all about getting your player into position and choosing the right shot with which to outplay your opponent – up close to the net, over their head, or wide enough to send them stumbling.

Tour Champion Tennis manages to get some of this right. In terms of realism, it has all the right sound effects – the sound of a ball being smashed back and forth, and even a commentator announcing the score after each game. It looks the part, too, with grass, hard and clay courts to play on that are surrounded by crowds of watching spectators.

What it doesn't do quite as well is replicate a skilful, fast-paced game of tennis. This is more of a tennis simulation than a game, and one that sometimes feels like it's been designed by a finicky mathematician.

A good shot is pulled off by halting an onscreen bar in exactly the right place. Stop it too early or too late and you miss. In theory, this is a perfectly good way to gauge the power of shots, but in practice it's fiddly and means you're trapped between watching the action and the power meter.

Correctly positioning your player is just done by using the left or right buttons – an arrow appears next to you once your opponent has hit the ball, indicating where the ball will land. Again, this is a tricky system to get used to, not least because, often, the arrow points in the opposite direction to the way it looks like the ball is travelling in. The result is clumsily having to concentrate on the arrow rather than what's actually happening in the game.

The control system takes a lot of getting used to, then, which makes it tricky to win even early on against the supposedly easy opponents. But there is some reward for persevering. Despite not being able to choose the direction in which you hit the ball, you can pull off three different kinds of shots and at varying power.

As well as a basic volley, there's a lob – pulled off by pressing down or using the number '8' – which can outwit your opponent if close to the net. There's also the smash – employed using up or '2' – and this whacks the ball with force, hopefully winning you a point.

With so much to concentrate on, and the pinpoint accuracy at which you need to move your player and place your shots, it's lucky to find there are handicaps that can be turned on. You can choose to relinquish control of either your movement or shots, so that one is controlled automatically for you.

This option is handy for practice early on, but to defeat more experienced players in the Tournament option, you really need to master everything. This mode pits you up against a variety of female tennis players, knocking out the losers of each round and getting progressively harder.

There's also a Quick Play offering that enables you to choose your court type and player. More are unlocked as you progress through the Tournament, and each player has different stats for power and speed.

On top of this there's a Training mode, which attempts to hone your lobs and volleys with the help of a ball machine, even though in actuality it just takes a lot of repetition and frustration to learn the ropes.

It's a shame the gameplay isn't better, as Tour Champion Tennis does look and sound the part. The fiddly arrows and power bar system are partly necessary but do make the game much more stilted and less accurate than you'd hope from a tennis title. There's also plenty of longevity in getting through the tournaments and unlocking all of the content. The problem is, you just might not get that far before giving up in frustration.