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Super Pro Tennis for the Intellivision - ?


Oscar G.

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Hello guys,

 

I was checking out David Harley's website and I saw this game announced.

 

http://www.intellivision.us/intvgames/tennis/tennis.php

 

The game looks like the fantastic Intellivision Tennis but with 1 player option!

 

I think that Tennis was one of the best sport games for the INTV and I always dreamed about playing it 1 player.

 

I am wondering if anyone has played this game and if it really delivers the promise of a 1 player Intelliivision tennis.

 

Thank you!

 

PS By the way Super Chef Burgertime was also announced. I guess this is the Beefdrop clone that David introduced some months ago.

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Same situation with me guys. I loved tennis and had to have friends over to play. We had epic matches!

Amazing simulation and sound. I loved the eyes of the crowd following the ball.

 

I was always impressed by the cheering crowd sound effect. To the 9 year old me, that was absolutely realistic!

 

My dear Grandfather was a regular Tennis player, and had signed me up to take Tennis lessons back then (which is the reason he bought me the game), which made the game all more enjoyable. I thought it worked just like the real thing!

 

dZ.

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I first played the Intellivision in the early eighties. I remember playing several sports games then. Most needed two players. I bought my first Intellivision several years ago and hen I found a reasonable priced copy of Championship Tennis, I was not disappointed by the single play.

 

I grew up with pong machines so the side view seems fine. I still play a lot of handheld tennis games and most are top overview like Champ Tennis. Kind of nice that they are different.

 

I guess the single player option in Championship Tennis really helps.

 

What are your thoughts IntvDave?

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I guess the single player option in Championship Tennis really helps.

 

What are your thoughts IntvDave?

 

I played the original Tennis when it was released and was fortunate my brother and friends would play since it had no one player mode. Fast forward 20 years and I was missing playing Tennis and then found Championship Tennis on eBay. I did not track the progress of Intv so I also picked up Championship Basesball. Baseball was a great upgrade as the game played the same but, honestly, I thought Championship Tennis was a huge disappointment. The biggest disappointement was that you had to have the player in place before swinging. In Tennis, you could swing before you reached the ball and you could keep running. How hard is Championship Tennis to play? Set the game up for the computer to play itself and watch how bad they play.

 

Championship Tennis was designed to be 4 players. It is difficult to move your player from one side of the court to the other and still be able to hit the ball since you have to be in position before the ball reaches you.

 

In Tennis, there is no need to have 4 players as the player could cover the entire court, with skill that is. But then, I guess it takes skill to be able to have your man in place in Championship Tennis. Maybe I am biased but I do not know of any other sports title that you had to be in place before doing anything. In Basketball, you run then shoot but there is no need to really keep moving.

 

I think all Super Pro titles, even hockey, were great upgrades. Maybe that is why Championship Tennis is not a Super Pro title?

 

I do not know why they changed the name of Super Soccer to World Cup Soccer.

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I played the original Tennis when it was released and was fortunate my brother and friends would play since it had no one player mode. Fast forward 20 years and I was missing playing Tennis and then found Championship Tennis on eBay. I did not track the progress of Intv so I also picked up Championship Basesball. Baseball was a great upgrade as the game played the same but, honestly, I thought Championship Tennis was a huge disappointment. The biggest disappointement was that you had to have the player in place before swinging. In Tennis, you could swing before you reached the ball and you could keep running. How hard is Championship Tennis to play? Set the game up for the computer to play itself and watch how bad they play.

 

Championship Tennis was designed to be 4 players. It is difficult to move your player from one side of the court to the other and still be able to hit the ball since you have to be in position before the ball reaches you.

 

In Tennis, there is no need to have 4 players as the player could cover the entire court, with skill that is. But then, I guess it takes skill to be able to have your man in place in Championship Tennis. Maybe I am biased but I do not know of any other sports title that you had to be in place before doing anything. In Basketball, you run then shoot but there is no need to really keep moving.

 

I think all Super Pro titles, even hockey, were great upgrades. Maybe that is why Championship Tennis is not a Super Pro title?

 

I do not know why they changed the name of Super Soccer to World Cup Soccer.

so as a rom variation junkie, were there other roms that had 2 different names?
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You really make some valid points IntvDave.

 

I never thought much about the control scheme. I have played other tennis games that are similar in the control movements. Maybe I need to try Championship Tennis on an emulator and see what differences I encounter. Systems due wear out and shoddy gameplay can be excused by thinking the controllers are going bad.

 

Since most of my friends had an Atari growing up, it is hard to get them to play much of anything on the Intellivision. Which makes me glad to see these updates of old sports titles.

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I personally liked Championship Tennis a lot. It's certainly buggy as hell (which make me suspect it was rushed), and has a steep learning curve, but it comes closer to feeling like real tennis than almost any other 1980s tennis game I've ever played. Beating Championship difficulty was one of my favorite gaming achievements of the last 10 years.

 

That said, I'm certainly very interested in Super Pro Tennis! The original Tennis was a nice effort, but adding one-player support will be huge.

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I personally liked Championship Tennis a lot. ........ The original Tennis was a nice effort, but adding one-player support will be huge.

 

Why do you like Championship Tennis more than regular Tennis? What would you change in the original Tennis to make it better? (Besides making it one player)

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Well, I'm not sure if I can say I prefer Championship Tennis, because without the 1-player option in regular Tennis, it's a bit apples-to-oranges. I certainly don't remember there being any major weaknesses in regular Tennis, besides the lack of 1-player -- as I recall, it controlled well and felt reasonably accurate. But I haven't played it in ages, so I'd need to revisit the game to be more specific. To be as clear as possible, I think this is a great project and I'm excited to see the results.

 

Tennis games are the one sports genre I play extensively, and what's most important to me is usually a combination of play control, realistic court dynamics, and non-cheap AI. For example the Tennis game for NES, which I loathe, fails on all three counts: the computer is a cheating backboard, the play control is finicky and unpleasant, and the gameplay itself feels nothing like real tennis. OTOH, Family Tennis for the Famicom, a Japanese exclusive, is a winner on all three criteria, and is pretty much my gold standard for 1980s tennis games.

 

The AI in Championship Tennis is pretty fair on the medium difficulty setting, and utterly relentless on the highest setting -- but it does have weaknesses and holes. The play control is questionable, I'll admit. But what makes the game, for me, is the fact that unlike other titles on competing platforms, it actually feels like tennis. Once you adjust to the game's quirky aspects, you can crack forehand winners cross-court, launch nasty serves out wide, lob a net-rushing opponent, etc. In other words, you can control your shots, play tactically, and do so in a way that feels intuitlvely right, at least to me.

 

Of course the game is still full of bugs and flaws -- the net game is non-existent, collision detection is very wonky, etc. -- so I don't mean to overpraise it. But when you compare it to the competition, the difference is night and day. From what I remember, the regular Tennis title on Intellivision had strong fundamentals, so I look forward to having two different, high-quality one-player tennis games on the Intellivision to enjoy. :D

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