The game Great Courts 1 was one of the first tennis games made for PC. It was created in the year 1989 by the company named Ubi Soft. This game was at first made for Amiga, but after its incredible success it was released for the PC too. Like the name suggests, this is a game about the tennis tournament world, where you can play the four Grand Slam tournaments: Australia open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US open.
There are three different control methods to choose from: mouse, keyboard, or joystick. I prefer keyboard, because it is easier to control your actions then with the mouse or joystick. When using the keyboard, you have a few extra seconds for sending the ball to the desired part of the field. The next step is to choose the way you will play. It could be tournament, or practice. When playing the tournaments, you can actually see how your player improves. Each time you win the game, your raking will increase, so you can slowly become a respectable player in the tennis world.
You begin the Grand Slam tournament playing in the Australian open. Schedule of the tournament in the game is the same as in the real world. As you can see in the screenshots, this first court is slow, so it will be easy to return balls. After that you will play Roland Garros, and conditions on the court are almost the same. The third tournament is Wimbledon on grass court, which is faster, and therefore more difficult to play. You should be more concentrated. If you will be not fast enough you will never be able to return ball. In the US open the field is the pretty the same as in Wimbledon.
Regardless of the fact that Great Courts 1 are 17 years old at the moment of writing, the graphics are surprisingly good with many details, such as the crowd around the court supporting you or your opponent. Another positive thing that can be said about Great Courts 1 is that it supports hotseat mode so you can invite your friend to play against you.
Because of its graphics and playability I give it 4 stars.
Released in 1989 by Blue Byte, Great Courts is one of the first really enjoyable tennis games on home computers. Sure, it doesn't have the VGA graphics and the great variety of options you'll find in Great Courts 2, but it's a very nice game on its own. Actually, a little harder than its successor, making it even more fun to hit that backhand down the line, passing your opponent near the net. I also prefer the fact that you always play at the bottom of the screen, as I found it much harder to play at the far end in its successor. Be sure to check out the manual below for details on game-controls. Though, compared to the original Amiga version of this game, the PC conversion looks pretty poor. Especially the EGA colour-palette makes it look a bit odd. Still, at the end of the day it's the gameplay that matters, and Great Courts delivers much more than other tennis games at the time. Highly recommended!
People who downloaded Great Courts have also downloaded:
Great Courts 2, Go Kart Challenge, Hooves of Thunder, Games, The: Summer Challenge, Games, The: Winter Challenge, Frank Thomas Big Hurt Baseball, GT Racing '97, Jammit
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