Ace Tennis 2010 Online

Ace Tennis 2010 Online has noble aspirations to be a great iPhone tennis experience, but that's where the compliments stop and the complaints begin.

Clearly in a rush to release in time to coincide with Wimbledon, developer Eurocenter has delivered this game severely undercooked.

While it's possible to appreciate what Eurocenter has attempted to serve up, there's far too much that doesn't work in Ace Tennis 2010 Online for it to be lovable. Horribly misguided controls and technical performance issues are faults too egregious to overlook.

Double fault

At least the game manages to get a few things right. Brief matches and online multiplayer give Ace Tennis 2010 Online some weight. The matchmaking system is decent and the ability to play online via wi-fi or 3G network gives it an edge on others in the genre.

A long, challenging tennis match is a beautiful thing, but not when you're killing a few minutes on an iPhone. Matches are over in a matter of five minutes or less and generally play to about three games in one abbreviated set.

Yet there are some aspects of an iPhone game the developer clearly doesn't much understand.

Ill-advised use of the accelerometer, for instance, mars the game. The default control scheme involves tilting your device in order to control the ball's direction. It renders the simple task of aiming your swing a complete chore.

Lesser of two evils

The game's alternative control configuration functions better. Instead of having to tilt your handset to aim your swings, you're able to slide a finger over a button in the direction you want to hit. Even this, sadly, doesn't seem natural and you never feel as though you have complete control.

Things are complicated as a result of the touch-to-run system that has you tap the screen to move your player. Although simple in concept, it just doesn't work. About half the time your player runs right past the spot to which you instructed him to move.

Moreover, there's no momentum to movement. Players can stop and start on a dime, which essentially eliminates agility as a factor in matches. Accounting for momentum while running across a court is one of the tough skills that tennis players have to acquire and it's ignored here.

Imitation tennis

All of this alone would have made for an at best moderately entertaining tennis game, but the extremely bad lag and framerate issues put the icing on the cake.

Lag during wi-fi and 3G play is so significant that the game is borderline unplayable. Not only is the performance choppy, by the excessive lag offers up some unusual glitches. One such glitch sees the ball disappearing into the back of the court and then fires out of the chest of the motionless opponent like a torpedo. Even though it appears as though your competitor missed the shot, the return is made.

Ace Tennis 2010 Online bets so heavily on multiplayer that it fails to meet baseline expectations. Even with technical improvements to online multiplayer, better controls are in order for this to be a game worth serving.