Championship Tennis Gameplay

[IntellivisionDude]

I'm sorry but i didn't like it. Way too complicated. I don't need my Tennis to be super realistic. I just want it to be fun. Does it really need to be so complicated just to serve without it being a Fault 99% of the time?

 

 

[+DZ-Jay]

That's what I thought of PGA Golf, from Mattel Electronics: too complicated. The manual even explained the trajectories and angles and all sorts of statistics.

 

dZ.

[+cmart604]

That's what I thought of PGA Golf, from Mattel Electronics: too complicated. The manual even explained the trajectories and angles and all sorts of statistics.

 

dZ.

 

Chip Shot Golf is soooo good though. I love that game. I can't remember if that's on your needs list?

[+DZ-Jay]

OK, Dude, I just watched the video and I have to say... I'm sorry but you suck! LOL!

 

The reason you are getting "fault" all the time is because you are hitting the ball when it is still too high, making it go much farther than necessary.

 

But it's OK, because it seems that the computer player sucks just as bad as you. (That was a computer player, hitting the net on almost every serve, right?)

[+DZ-Jay]

Chip Shot Golf is soooo good though. I love that game. I can't remember if that's on your needs list?

 

I don't have it. I have Slap Shot and Sharp Shot, I'm missing Chip Shot to complete the "Shot Trifecta."

 

-dZ.

[IntellivisionDude]

OK, Dude, I just watched the video and I have to say... I'm sorry but you suck! LOL!

 

The reason you are getting "fault" all the time is because you are hitting the ball when it is still too high, making it go much farther than necessary.

 

But it's OK, because it seems that the computer player sucks just as bad as you. (That was a computer player, hitting the net on almost every serve, right?)

 

I'm better at maze games.

[+thegoldenband]

Well, first of all, I sympathize with your frustration -- Championship Tennis is a tough game, and it's difficult to get a handle on it. I was slaughtered in my first matches, and had to put around 20 hours into the game before I could beat the computer on the highest difficulty. It's definitely buggy, as I've said elsewhere. And it's not helped by the manual, which makes at least one outright mistake (maybe the overlays do too, I don't remember) by getting the functions of the lower side button backwards.

 

That said, I think you're selling the game short. The serving is strictly a timing thing (direction doesn't matter), and it's pretty typical of older tennis games which were often unforgiving in that department. But once you get it down, it's pretty reliable, and I almost never serve faults. Like DZ-Jay said, I think you're swinging too early, and just haven't gotten the timing down yet.

 

When you get a rally started, you need to anticipate the ball better and move to the expected location in order to stand a chance. You absolutely can't swing late at the ball or it'll go whizzing by you over and over again. The lob shot is slow to wind up, so the hard shot will be your bread and butter most of the time. You have a lot more leeway on the forehand side than on the backhand side, and in certain situations you can actually cream a ball that's clearly well out of your reach (!).

 

More generally, I don't really think the game is "complicated" at all -- if anything I think the original Tennis was more complicated, whereas Championship Tennis is fairly streamlined: one button for hard, one for soft, one for lob, and the three keypad buttons are just "serve wide", "serve into the body", or "serve down the T". Serving wide is the best strategy 99% of the time in most tennis games, and this one's no exception, so you only have to hit the button once each game and then basically forget about it.

 

It's not an arcade-style game, true, but there are too many of those, and most of them suck IMHO. The two Atari games are OK, but they're very shallow. The ColecoVision and SG-1000 games are poor (well, maybe the CV one's not so bad). The NES Tennis game, which actually predates Championship Tennis if I'm not mistaken, is a horrible game that's on my all-time worst list. It's the worst of both worlds, with tricky serving timing, shallow gameplay, and a computer that acts like a backboard.

 

I also don't know how much of a tennis fan you are (I noticed that you didn't know the term "let", which is a serve that touches the net but goes in, and is replayed without penalty). If you're into baseball, a game where you hit home runs all the time will seem ridiculous, but if you don't know anything about baseball it won't bother you, right? Similarly, the arcade-style games like Virtua Tennis bug the crap out of me because everything's a perpetual highlight reel, and no one ever makes the mistakes that are characteristic of real tennis. That said, there are realistic games that are definitely easier to play than Championship Tennis; a favorite of mine is Family Tennis for the Famicom.

[+thegoldenband]

BTW, two more notes:

 

- I think the layout of the Inty controller is a real problem for this game. It's not really possible to comfortably access all three side buttons -- at least, it wasn't for me, not with the level of quickness that I need for CT. I end up mostly ignoring the "soft" hit (which is mislabeled, remember!) and just using 95% hard shots and the occasional lob.

 

- With practice, you'll learn that there are certain spots on the court where you can reliably hit great serves or outright winners (shots that blast by your opponent). In particular, when you're on the near side of the court, there's a spot close to the service line in the ad court where you can hit it past the computer 75% of the time. On Championship difficulty, that feels reallllly good. And there's another spot where you can hit lobs over the computer from the far court, but it's not reliable.

[IntellivisionDude]

I used to watch tennis years ago. But it's been a while. But maybe i was a bit harsh. I will make a small amendment and add it to the description bar of the video.

 

"Well i have learned that the reason i was faulting so much was because i hitting the ball too early when serving. The was too high and i needed to wait for it to come down a tad more. So maybe i was a bit harsh on this one."

[+save2600]

Problem is, the way the ball is depicted in the air during a serve, does not seem accurate or realistic at all. Have to wait for it to fall much lower than you think it should. Right above your crotch! lol Frustrating indeed.

[+thegoldenband]

It's tough as hell, I'm not gonna lie -- but it's really satisfying once you get the hang of it and can whip the computer in straight sets on the top difficulty. Not that I can do that anymore, not without some practice anyway; the last time I played, I lost something like 6-2 6-2 6-2.

 

And if you want a realistic game of tennis, it was literally the only option out there until Family Tennis, AFAIK. And that wasn't released in the US until it was ported to the TG-16 sometime later (I don't know if that port is as good).

[+save2600]

World Court Tennis for the TG-16 rocked. Much easier and more playable than this.

 

Only other Tennis game for a console I thought was great was the one for the SNES, where the four buttons all had different attributes. Super Tennis of course. What else would it be called?

 

Funny how Activision's Tennis for the 2600 is pretty much just a pong game. Get within range of the ball to volley, and you automatically swing!

[+thegoldenband]

Glad to hear that the excellent gameplay of the Family Tennis engine was retained in the TG-16 port! That game is great, and the Famicom version includes thinly disguised real players who actually play like their real-life selves. Navratilova is a fantastic volleyer! Lendl works brilliantly with a serve out wide + forehand to the open court combination! Who'd believe it, right?

 

Super Tennis was pretty good, very good even. It had some quirks I didn't love -- it was too easy to hit the ball out, and you really had to rein in almost all your shots to keep the ball in play. And there was a weird quirk where you could serve bucketloads of slow aces by adding well-timed spin to the ball; the computer would whiff over and over again. And the game's volleys were poor. But the basic gameplay was very solid.

 

In reality there are very few good tennis games out there, and a lot of crappy ones. The 8- and 16-bit rosters are quite grim, and what I've seen of later generations hasn't been inspiring either. One of the best I've played, though, is Monkey Tennis! -- that is, the bonus unlockable game in Super Monkey Ball 2, which is low on options but has terrific feel.

[IntellivisionDude]

Mario Tennis is fun.

[+save2600]

Mario Tennis is fun.

 

Oh yeah, almost forgot about Mario Tennis! Was stuck in vintage or retro mode. Like totally and for sure!

[+thegoldenband]

N64 Mario Tennis, or Mario Power Tennis for the GameCube? I don't think I've played the N64 game, but I hated the GameCube game (unless I'm getting them backwards). I found it totally gimmicky and saturated with the kind of highlight-reel stuff I can't stand.

[IntellivisionDude]

N64 Mario Tennis, or Mario Power Tennis for the GameCube? I don't think I've played the N64 game, but I hated the GameCube game (unless I'm getting them backwards). I found it totally gimmicky and saturated with the kind of highlight-reel stuff I can't stand.

 

I own both but i haven't played much of either. But just enough to know they are fun.

[TeddyBear89]

Probably not too surprisingly, there are not that many in-depth threads on this game.  Sorry for the necro-bump

 

I have spent 2 hours, 4 shots of Jamo and 6 Bud Lights of my life during this pandemic today playing this game and I still do not know how I feel about it.

 

I hate the side button action, truth be told.  Especially the lob option, which is only on the bottom right side.  These 49 year-old hands get a little sore after a long Inty session as it is.  After this game....damn!

 

I have lost 6-0 6-0 a few times but once was up 40-15 in a game before the CPU did it's thing.  That's good, right?

 

I see the beauty in this game - it is a really advanced tennis game and for coming out in 1986....just wow.  I am below-average tennis buff so I'll deal either way.  Anyone out there still playing this in the summer of 2020?

[Byte Knight]

On 5/28/2020 at 6:23 PM, TeddyBear89 said:

I see the beauty in this game - it is a really advanced tennis game and for coming out in 1986....just wow.  I am below-average tennis buff so I'll deal either way.  Anyone out there still playing this in the summer of 2020?

Not me - way too hard...  Super Pro Tennis is much more fun.

[mr_me]

We had Mattel's intellivision tennis from 1980.  It had a bit of a learning cover but was great once you had the timing figured out.  Didn't know about INTV Championship Tennis until the later 1990s but looked forward to playing against the computer.  The two issues with the game are not being able to run and swing like the original and the awkward third button.  The original tennis had top buttons for groundstrokes and bottoms for lobs.  Action games like this shouldn't use all three buttons.  World cup soccer has the same problem.  So being used to Mattel's Intellivision Tennis, Championship Tennis was disappointing.

[TeddyBear89]

20 hours ago, mr_me said:

Action games like this shouldn't use all three buttons.  World cup soccer has the same problem.

Truer words have never been spoken......

 

I have been using this weird pandemic time to try to really get to play some of the more minor Inty titles and with confidence can scratch off Championship Tennis and World Cup off the list.