Tennis Elbow

R

Rob92

Guest
With Roland Garros, Queens and Wimbledon all on in the last few weeks getting me into tennis, I decided to download the Tennis Elbow 2011 trial.

It's a huge improvement on the 2009 version, the ball physics and gameplay are very realistic, I recommend it to anyone looking for a simulation tennis game.

I ended up buying the full game (only about £15) and it hasn't disappointed - the different surfaces really do have a distinct style, with grass being so quick compared to the more slow and bouncy clay courts etc. This means a different type of player and playing style is favoured on the different surfaces.

Perhaps the best thing about the game though is the World Tour mode - it has pretty much the whole ATP Tour calendar with the proper rankings system, with qualifiers, challengers, futures etc plus the Davis Cup.
In addition to that, the game features pretty much every real tennis player you can think of from the last 20 years (1990-present) and depending on which year you decide to start your 15 year career, the players come and go as they turned pro/retired in real life.
Compare that to TS4's pathetic roster of 10 current ATP pros and unrealistic career mode...

The online mode isn't bad either, with filters for control settings, player attributes, ping etc. and it's quite active on there, and the people you come up against are usually quite sporting (as opposed to the usual XBL/PSN wankers anyway).

If you play games for the graphics though, don't even take a look... It looks like a 90's game (although it has decent animations)... Some people on their forums have modded it though to look a bit nicer.

Here's a link;
http://www.managames.com/tennis/game_en.html
 
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Re: Top Spin 4

Looks like it could be quite good, way too expensive though.
 
Just tried a game on it, I like it, much more realistic than Top Spin 4. It's basically only the animations that aren't that good, everything else seems extremely polished.
 
Re: Top Spin 4

Is the single player on Tennis Elbow 2011 any good then? AI decent?
 
Re: Top Spin 4

I would suggest you download the demo and try it out. I only played one game against a pretty bad player, lot of realistic mistakes, but I would have to play more to see if the AI is good or not.
 
Re: Top Spin 4

Tried the demo. Liked it quite a lot, specifically the ball physics and the forced/unforced errors.

I'm still trying to adapt to the controls. At first they seem complicated and you have to adapt. Will be playing it these days to test it, but instantly saw a lot more potential in this game than in the Top Spin series, in all fronts except animations.
 
Re: Top Spin 4

I'll grab the demo tonight, I'm guessing I'm able to use my 360 controller fine?
 
Re: Top Spin 4

Just had a quick go on the demo and I actually quite liked it. The physics felt really smart, I liked the movement of the players and the controls work really well once you get used to them.

Not sure if it was because it was a beginner game but the CPU constantly hit shots over the court and most of my points came from shots going out. Sound effects need working on as well, no echo on them at all, sounds and voices just end way too abruptly.

As it stands though, I might be tempted to get the full version now.
 
Re: Top Spin 4

DagsJT said:
Is the single player on Tennis Elbow 2011 any good then? AI decent?
Click to expand...
I think it's good - there's six difficulty levels, each with 10 sublevels (so basically 60 difficulty levels), so there's definitely a level somewhere in there to make the game challenging for anyone.

The developers say that the "Pro" levels are the more realistic ones, I'm currently on Pro sublevel 6.

Remember to edit the skills and difficulty level of your opponent in the character sheet so that they make less unforced errors and hit more winners.
You can edit your player's skills as well I think.

If anyone wants to know about any part of the game in-depth, and fancies a long read, the documentation for the game is here;
http://www.managames.com/tennis/doc/Tennis_Elbow-Tennis_Game.html
Pretty much explains everything to do with the game, as well as even the rules of tennis :LOL:.
 
Re: Top Spin 4

I'm going to buy it, I've decided.

Had a few games today, and each time I win, the game asks if I want to move up to the next level and it just gets better each time. Love the control scheme too.

Fancy setting up a new thread, Rob? Probably better than going off-topic in this one. And can a mod move any Tennis Elbow 2011 posts from here to the new thread once it's done? Making it all tidier and all of that ;)
 
Re: Top Spin 4

I'm utterly and completely fucking rubbish at this :(

Only on Junior sub 1, doing the qualifying and every CPU player is bloody Nadal-like hitting these amazing shots that I've got no chance with!
 
Re: Top Spin 4

I figured out what I was doing wrong, real amateur mistake! I wasn't dropping back enough so all of my shots were in the danger area and I was hitting them poorly as well as not giving myself a chance of get a proper angle to attack from or get back and defend.

Sorted that out and I've won a couple of games off and on. Started a career as Tim Henman and I'm into the 2nd round of some Costa Rican tournament :)

Really enjoying this, spent more time on this than any tennis game in the last 15-20 years already!
 
Re: Top Spin 4

as I said back a few posts, I have always rated Tennis Elbow as being the best game for tennis ball physics, agree with all Rob has said here.

However, have played VT4 on PC this last week and believe it or not, one CPU player,yes Mr Murray himself is able to hit shots back at you with varying amounts of side spin.........im over the moon and gobsmacked that finally a tennis game other than Tennis Elbow has implemented side spin!!!

Christ on a stick, side spin has only been in the real game since it began!!

Strangely though, all the other CPU opponents in VT4 dont ever attempt to put side spin on the ball..........i have never come across a sports sim that has given me what i want in a game but ONLY for one player, Mr Murray himself, how strange!!
 
I've moved these posts to a new thread - let me know if I missed any or left anyone looking mental by moving a post they were responding to.
 
Gab_ said:
Just tried a game on it, I like it, much more realistic than Top Spin 4. It's basically only the animations that aren't that good, everything else seems extremely polished.
Click to expand...

Gab enjoying a game? :CONFUSE:

Here comes 2012! Bevere! Bevere! Bevere!
 
A guy at work plays this alot he really enjoys it, as he says he hates Virua and Top Spin as they are too arcady and dont't require much skill.

He says Tennis Elbow has a very steep learning curve and takes an awful amount of time and effort but it is an amazing game when you get into and it has all the correct players names and rankings for the top 200 in the world.

He has given me a copy of his key thing so I will give this a go in the next couple of days.
 
bsmaff said:
A guy at work plays this alot he really enjoys it, as he says he hates Virua and Top Spin as they are too arcady and dont't require much skill.

He says Tennis Elbow has a very steep learning curve and takes an awful amount of time and effort but it is an amazing game when you get into and it has all the correct players names and rankings for the top 200 in the world.

He has given me a copy of his key thing so I will give this a go in the next couple of days.
Click to expand...
Yeah it's a great game, you need to think about how you construct your points and adapt your gameplan to the opponent/surface.

You really get punished for rushing the net from the wrong angle/approach shot, playing short balls to your opponent's stronger side etc.

Just remember not to go online if you're borrowing someone's key - it will get banned from online play if it's found out that a key has been shared.
 
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How do you play a 2-player local game using real players? Could only find using generic players.
 
Go to the World Tour mode, go to start a new game as an existing player, find the player you want to use in local/practice modes, click their name, then go to the icon at the top left saying "Save player to training club".

This allows you to load them from the Character Sheet in the Training Club (exhibition/warm up) mode.

You can do this for up to 36 players at a time :).
 
Cheers mate, seems a bit of a backwards way of doing it though!
 
Yeah, it's a bit annoying how long-winded it is.

Just looked at the credits, it's just one guy who has been coding the game (with third-party help with 3D art and some help from forum members with translations), so it's a great achievement to create such a good game!
 
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Just thought I'd let you guys know that TE 2013 has been released, the gameplay is a bit more polished now but it's largely the same as before.

It's not really a new version though as such in the same way as FIFA - if you have a license key for TE2011 it will work with this for no extra charge.

The best thing about the game these days though is that it's got a bigger following now, and the mods are of a very high quality, here's a quick video I took of the first game of a match, Federer (me) vs Djokovic to demonstrate this (search for "ATPWTA MegaPatch for more vids);

YouTube - Tennis Elbow 2013 - Federer v Djokovic first game

All of the courts in the game are real ATP ones (on the World Tour mode this is great), the majority of the players have been edited to more accurate likenesses, lots of animations added, sound effects, menu music, official looking scoreboards... It's really complete and adds a lot to the game.
 
.. all I can say is that this is without doubt the best tennis sim of all time. In fact id go as far as saying one of the best sport sims of all time. After not playing this game for about 2 years or so, I found out TE2013 was out. I downloaded it, ie. full version (my key - which I got from purchasing the 2011 version still works), then I applied the awesome ITST 1.16 MOD.. holy crap this is amazing. If you like tennis you need to get this game... amazing.. have a look at this awesome clip I found on youtube recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPVGOmgGnk4

This is the best tennis game ive every played since the very little know Japanese tennis game "world pro tennis 98 "on psx
 
i tried the demo and quite like the gameplay but no way i am buying the game at that price level. i mean it's a 10 years old game visually/animation wise, you can't ask for 20 euros for that kinda of awful stuff. if it was around a tenner i could buy it though. too bad in the demo they won't let you try the circuit mode with the real players (i had downloaded the patch for the off line but it turned out it was a waste of time).
 
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