With Tennis Elbow 2011, The Best Gets Better

If you're a fan of both tennis and video games, you should know by now that the premiere franchise for tennis gaming is the Tennis Elbow series, made by the small, independent French-based Mana Games.

The Tennis Elbow series allows for not only some of the most realistic game play, but also by far the most realistic career mode, with it's World Tour including hundreds upon hundreds of real tour stops.  Add an extremely lively online play component, and you've got yourself the best possible set-up for a tennis fan.

In World Tour Mode, playing real stops on the tour from grand slams, Davis Cup, challengers, and all the way down to tiny futures level events.  Both singles and doubles are available.

After previous installments for 2006 and 2009, Mana Games recently released the third installment of the game, Tennis Elbow 2011.

The changes between the 2009 and 2011 versions are nowhere near as dramatic in terms of game play as were the changes between the 2006 and 2009 versions.  The physics of the game have stayed largely the same, as has the format of the World Tour mode (though recent changes made to the tour calendars have been reflected).

The main changes that have occurred are primarily aesthetic, though still quite significant.  The courts/stadiums are now fully three-dimensional worlds, allowing for significantly more camera angles.  I still prefer the fixed, television-style camera angle during, but I do like the different views for occasionally seeing a replay of one of my more spectacular shots.

The stadiums, which were once almost entirely two-dimensional, now are now beautiful, cavernous bowls, filled with individually moving audience members who applaud at all the appropriate junctures.  The one criticism I have of this design is that the many courts look mostly the same architecturally, aside from an accurately lower back wall for indoor courts.  While it is a nice touch to now have the stands be considerably emptier for qualifying rounds than they are for main draw matches, it is still a smidge inauthentic to be playing a $10k futures clay court tournament in what looks like the same venue as Stade Philippe Chatrier.

There are some small tweaks to the player appearance as well, with several new clothing and hairstyles now available.  Short length is a newly adjustable setting, so the amount of upper leg your character shows can range all the way from McEnroe to Nadal.

The one big change in terms of game play is to the amount in which fatigue matters in the game.  Though an extinguishable option in online play, fatigue and tiredness are mandatory components of World Tour mode in Tennis Elbow 2011, making characters lose their power and endurance far more quickly than they had before.

In large part due to this, the game is much more difficult than it was before.  I had developed something of a ball-bashing style in Tennis Elbow 2009, but my enormous groundstrokes now quickly deplete my character's energy in the 2011 version. 

With no Plan B immediately at my disposal, my matches are often wildly lopsided now, in both directions.  For example, in the London tournament before Wimbledon, my character easily beat a British wild card 6-0, 6-0 before falling in the next round to #2-seed Novak Djokovic 0-6, 0-6.  Those incredible flips in one-sidedness can be frustrating, for sure, but for now it's better than a game that is too easy.

Tough enough to stay fun for months, Tennis Elbow 2011 further cements Mana Games place atop the pyramid of tennis gaming.  If you like tennis, and don't have anything you need to get done in the next several months, I can't think of a much better way to spend your time than with Tennis Elbow 2011.

If you haven't played Tennis Elbow before, or simply would like to try out the new-and-(mostly)-improved 2011 version, you can download a free demo at the Mana Games website.  The full version can be purchased for US$24.95 or €19.

After the jump, a YouTube video of what gameplay can look like in Tennis Elbow 2011.

*Mana Games provided  The Daily Forehand with a copy of TE 2011 for the purpose of this review.