It's purely subjective, but since the excellent Top Spin 4, fans of the little yellow ball are chomping at the bit. OK, Tennis Elbow 2013 was great, provided you practice the hours before having fun on the court. Although it does not really box in the same category, we could cite Mario Tennis Aces (2018) on Nintendo Switch: its mechanics, both chiseled and accessible, are to be shown in all schools. As for Tennis World Tour (2018), is it really necessary to reconsider the disappointment that it was? In short, all that to say that it is not necessarily joy when you idolize Roger Federer, which explains all the hopes placed in AO International Tennis 2. Unfortunately, from the first exchanges, we realize that the developers have decided to die with their ideas, the same ones that made the first game anything but intuitive. Yes, while logic (in a video game, at least) would like us to focus first on the timing and the power of the strike, Big Ant Studios thinks that we must first target the area where you want to return the ball. AO International Tennis may have imposed this unnatural exercise two years ago, but our brains continue to gnaw. The problem with such an approach is that the game has no flavor: most of the time, it comes down to doing the windshield wiper while waiting to be able to land a devastating forehand or a long backhand . You can always venture into a diagonal, but the insane nature of the gameplay means that opening the court is useless, since it is difficult to finish the point behind.
The problem with such an approach is that the game has no flavor: most of the time, it comes down to doing the windshield wiper while waiting to be able to land a devastating forehand or a long backhand .
Anecdotal in the first AO International Tennis, the effects (slice, flat, lift) have obviously not benefited from any overhaul. Same for the types of surfaces: whether on hard, grass or clay, the rebound of the ball remains the same. Under these conditions, it is impossible to break the opponent's legs with, for example, a drop shot. Basically, it's the whole range of moves that becomes outdated, the fault of a physics engine that makes a nice middle finger in tennis. The inertia of the players being poorly calibrated, it is risky to get to the net. We have the impression of having seedlings in our hands, and it's even more striking on the changes of support, the replacement, the small steps to position yourself well in relation to the ball. More than once, we happened to be caught on the wrong foot without being able to react, when there was a way to save the point. Something to drive crazy. Worse, the AI often tends to counter a powerful blow with a banana shot, breaking and at an impossible angle. Ultimately, let it come out of Nadal's racket, why not; but when it comes to a no name, it's a bit more annoying. If it would be dishonest not to highlight the efforts made in terms of animations, it is still insufficient. The absence of slides on clay shows that Big Ant Studios is still far from the mark: with AO International Tennis 2, the feeling does not pass. We spend our time looking for tricks to make the torture less painful.
UNFORGETTABLE FAULT
On this subject, tweaking in the options allows you to reduce the speed of the aim; it avoids constantly flirting with the lines if you tend to tilt the stick early. Disabling the movement aid is also ideal for limiting the scripts that lead to the volley as much as possible, as well as the incomprehensible hesitations of the player in certain cases. We let you take a look at all this, knowing that the dosage obviously depends on the style of each. On the casting side, 25 licensed stars answer the call. It's five more than the first part, but we would have liked BigBen Interactive to look at icons of the discipline. If the Top Spin 4 roster has never been a problem, it's because there was Federer, Djokovic, Serena Williams, Murray, Sampras, or even Becker. In AO International Tennis 2, we get Daria Gavrilova, Frances Tiafoe, Monica Puig, Kyle Edmund and Kevin Anderson. They are certainly known to purists, but at a time when tennis games are not legion and need to be sold, it would have been wiser to turn to names that speak to the general public. Fortunately Nadal, Monfils, Wawrinka, Goffin – and to a lesser extent Mladenovic, Barty, Garcia, Stosur, Cilic and Isner – are there to shed some light. And then, the Academy is always present so that users can create their own players from A to Z, knowing that it is also possible to download avatars created by the community.
No, Big Ant Studios did not rectify the situation with AO International Tennis 2, while the site was enormous. Instead of taking pleasure in each stroke of the racquet, we constantly struggle to give angle without the ball ending up in the hallway.
Of course, that involves coming across several "Rodger" or "Djoko" with rather strange features sometimes, but the evaluation system makes it possible to target credible versions fairly quickly. Note that we can design complexes to, again, compensate for the lack of licenses, AO International Tennis 2 devoting itself exclusively to the Australian Open. We are not going to go over all the game modes – especially since most are already known – and focus instead on the Career for which the developers have promised some changes. The first only follows the current trend (FIFA, NBA 2K in the lead), since the single-player campaign is now scripted. Well, it does not break three legs to a duck, let's be clear, but the cut scenes have the merit of animating the whole which was ultra soporific in the first episode. We also appreciate all the extras that a professional player has to deal with – the organization of the schedule, the sponsors, the management of fatigue, popularity through social networks and the media, among others. The response choices at press conferences have not been forgotten, but their impact on the destiny of our colt is minimal. However, we would have liked a detestable attitude to complicate relations with brands, something that we perceive when we chain gestures of humor on the court; the public then does not hesitate to express its dissatisfaction. As for the progression of the player, it is not without pain, especially when playing in Pro. Do not panic if you chain the defeats therefore, the victories come as we improve the skills of our character. Climbing the rankings is not done in a snap, and that is precisely what prompted us to chain the tournaments
"I FEAR NO ONE BUT RESPECT EVERYONE"
Visually, AO International Tennis 2 does little better than its predecessor, as if Big Ant Studios had already given it their all. We thought that the modeling of the characters would finally take into account the particularities of each one, but this is not the case; the morphology is almost the same from one player to another. The close-ups are a real torture as the facial animations (when there are any) are from another time, and the courts still lack relief. The generic character of the audience doesn't seem to bother many people, either. As has been hinted, only the animations manage to hold their own. In fact, the developers have gone to great lengths to integrate signature moves so that the players are immediately recognizable. It's just a shame that their style of play hasn't been replicated with the same accuracy. Hence this feeling of embodying more duplicates than real individuals. Finally, regarding the online mode, the slight lag that we observed reinforces the lack of player responsiveness highlighted above. We did not insist.
