Tennis Masters Series Preview
We traveled to Microids' Montreal offices to take a look at the company's upcoming tennis game.
Tennis games have been noticeably absent from the PC release calendars for more than a year, leaving fans of the sport with very few alternatives. But with the growing popularity of the sport and the success of Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast console, Microids decided to develop Tennis Masters Series not only to appease PC owners but also to set the standard for all subsequently released tennis games. The sheer amount of effort put into the game, and the resulting level of detail, is evidence that Microids is dedicated to reaching its lofty goals, but it will be interesting to see if Tennis Masters Series can successfully revive the sport on the PC.
Tennis Masters Series lets you play through a series of tournaments to receive points and earn a high ranking. Winning a tournament altogether gives you a high score, while losing early gives very few points. There are nine tournaments in the game, all of which take place in traditional tennis locales such as Monte Carlo and Montreal. If you don't accumulate enough points in these tournaments--or at least enough to rank you eighth in the world out of 67 players--then you can't participate in Tennis Masters Series' championship tournament, the Masters Cup. Aside from the main tournament mode, Tennis Masters Series features an exhibition mode that essentially functions as a practice mode, where you can adjust difficulty levels, the number of games, and the number of sets. There's also a multiplayer mode that supports up to four players through LAN.
Regardless of the mode you start out with, the first aspect of Tennis Masters Series that you'll notice during gameplay is its impressive level of detail in both the courts and the player models. Each court has been modeled to look as realistic as possible, down to the advertisements on the walls just behind the baseline and the Mercedes-Benz logo that can be found on either side of the net. As further evidence of the detail in the game, players actually make footprints as they run across a clay court and even occasionally leave streaks when sliding in to hit the ball. The player models in Tennis Masters Series also express emotions throughout the game, depending on their match performance. Win a point and your player pumps his fist in the air, whereas the opponent simply stands on the baseline with a disheartened look, waiting for your player to finish the brief celebration. They even complain after a bad call. Microids is still putting the finishing touches on all the stadiums and player models, including additional emotions for players and other minor tweaks.
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