Hot Shots Tennis

The well established golf game franchise, Hot Shots, has traded its clubs for a racket--and oh what a racket it is. After ten years of making fun and accessible golf games, Hot Shots Tennis arrives, attempting to adapt Hot Shots Golf's winning formula and turn it into another lucrative franchise.

Hot Shots Tennis shows no innovative thought in the tennis genre nor does it deliver extraordinary game play, but for what it's worth--$30--Hot Shots Tennis still manages to be an entertaining experience.

Calling the Shots

The Hot Shots games have never been acclaimed for their graphics as they rely on vibrant, colorful cartoon environments and quirky character design instead of photorealism. The tennis courts of varying surfaces and colors have replaced the vast and intricately designed Hot Shots golf courses, which sadly takes all the fun out of pushing through the challenges to earn different course designs. Some of the characters from Hot Shots Golf make cameo appearances in the Hot Shots tennis game, but the ability to customize your own characters and build upon their attributes is absent.

Like its graphics, Hot Shots Tennis sounds like rest of the franchise, so expect lots of character sound effects and speech clips, as well as a vast assortment of generic tennis grunts and sound effects. Also, expect the same elevator music and annoying celebratory cut scenes. In all, the lack of music and the announcer's irritating British accent make this game a good one to play on mute.

Control-wise, Hot Shots Tennis is easy to pick up and play. In fact, it's easier to control the character on the court by tapping x at the appropriate time than it is to figure out the timing and aiming procedure from previous iterations of Hot Shots Golf.

Hot Shots Golf is a convincing transformation of the Hot Shots Golf style of play. It's easy enough to pick up and play immediately. It's fast paced enough to keep you engaged for several matches. And, if you happen to dig simple games you will probably have a good time with Hot Shots Tennis. But, don't expect this game to be a pillar in your collection of games and don't expect to remember you own it after a few weeks. All in all Hot Shots is definitely worth a try; maybe not a purchase, but definitely a rental.

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