The traffic is gridlocked in New York. Quite realistic. Apart from the tennis

Thwap be-woolled ball upon taut-stringed racket. Indulge in multi-tapped four-player action. Oh yes, it's tennis, and no-one does it quite like Namco...
Steve Bradley

Harrumph! Tennis games are always pump...
You've got a point. But the general rule of thumb is that tennis games that purport to be 'realistic' are the ones that are crap. The court sagas that concentrate on gameplay, however, are fabulous.

... and they are?
Um, the original Smash Court Tennis. It first appeared on Nintendo's Super Famicom before arriving on the PlayStation. Nobody bought the game. Oh, and there was a wonderful little game called Super Tennis Champs which a young fellow called Elliot Bird programmed in his bedroom for Amiga Power magazine and it was picked up by Audiogenic who published it on the Amiga format.

Anna Kournakova?
Y'know, the young, blonde thing in the short skirt. She's the sex symbol of the tennis circuit. It's a bit of a last-minute licence, too. The import versions are simply called Smash Court Tennis 2.

So, what's it like, then?
Smash Court, for the uninitiated, is a full-on, cartoon-style tennis game. You get to choose from 20 different players, including the aforementioned Anna Kournakova. Amusingly, the preview version we played hasn't got Anna. But if you choose her character, you get to swish around a tennis racket in mid-air - her body is invisible. At the moment. No doubt Anna will make an appearance before the game's finished. The players each have their own particular skills; some like to play at the net, others are more accomplished at the baseline. Some players are left-handed, others are right-handed. It all makes a difference to how you approach the game.