Do you 'love-all' tennis games? Or do you winder why the 'deuce' people buy them? Is there an 'advantage'? in (stop it now - Ed). Anyway, this is actually one of the better ones, especially if you think most are a bit finicky about where you place your little character on the court.

Here you have got something which has all the options you could want, not a great deal of variety in the shots, and a certain amount of excitement. The problem with it lies in the fact that you can actually beat the computer with ease.

This could well be part of the game's initial appeal, because it is immensely rare to beat any computer sports game first time out. But this, true enough, is an exception.

The characters do not look terrifyingly realistic, but who cares? They move quickly and you can play a decent game with them. Buy this if you are after some tennis-related fun.

Tennis was the subject of the very first video game, Pong - you know the one where you get two white rectangles either side of a while line which knock a little block about. Things have certainly moved on since then. We have a few more colours for a start, and no longer do you control a disembodied 'bat', but a little pixellated human being, with his own racket, shorts and designer sweatbands.

On the gameplay side, there have been no significant improvements since Pro Tennis Tour was released, oooh, four years ago. International Tennis is actually very similar to PTT, but the extra control options enable you to produce smashes, slices and those infuriating little drop shots that just plop over the net and give your opponent a cardiac arrest when he just doesn not manage to get them.

Another good thing is the number of player options which include all sorts of permutations of you, a friend and the computer. For example, you can play your pal at singles, or you can both team up and play the computer at doubles.

The computer itself plays well, although the animation is a bit lumpy, and the graphics are hardly astounding. The sound consists of the typical clonk of bat on ball, and a commentator who sounds more like Darth Vader than Dan Maskell.

What International Tennis lacks are a tournament mode, grandslam tours and all that tennis-y kind of atmosphere that you get with Pro Tennis Tour. Still it is a good play, and if you are looking for a one- or two-player tennis sim then this is about as good as they get on the Amiga.

Publisher: Zeppelin Premier
Price: £7.99
Release: Out now

THE BOTTOM LINE

Inferior graphics and sound, but the gameplay is all there. There's an impressive array of options, although a tourament mode would have been a bonus. But at £7.99 for a decent tennis game there's hardly much room for complaint, eh?

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P E R C E N T

I 've never really held out much hope for a decent tennis game on the Amiga. In fact, the only really playable tennis game I can remember was Match Point on the Spectrum, about nine years ago. I had just about given up hope completely when what should pop into my hands but International Tennis, and what a brilliant version of the sport it is.

There are certainly enough options to keep anyone happy. There are three different types of court for you to play on, lawn, clay or asphalt, all viewed from one end of the pitch in forced perspective, and you can play singles, doubles, male or female. In fact, the only option that seems to be missing is the keyboard controls for the ball boys!

The controls for the game are very simple, far simpler than most. The eight way control moves the player around the court, and the fire button swings the racket.

Holding one of the joystick directions while swinging adds different effects, such as more power or spin, but it's done logically, i.e. holding left causes the ball to spin left.
It's cheap, it's fast and it's playable. Get it!