Tennis In The Face Review (PS4)

Tennis is a game that is usually played between two people, or four if you’re doing doubles, on a court with a net running across the middle. All participants hold rackets to hit the ball that is coming towards them at fast speeds. The aim of the game is to score against your opponent by making them miss, or making them commit a mistake. Tennis does not require you to aim for your opponent’s face, any other part of their body for that matter.

Tennis In The Face only has one thing in common with regular tennis, and that is you have a racket and some tennis balls. Other than that the aim of the game is to mercilessly take down anyone who gets in your way to destroy the Explodz soft drink company, which ruined protagonist Pete Pagassi’s professional career after he became addicted to the drink. Unfortunately for him everyone else is now hooked on the drink, and will stand in his way to make sure that the company continues pumping out the liquid.

In terms of gameplay Tennis In The Face is similar to the likes of Angry Birds, in that it is a 2d physics based game where you have to knock things and enemies down. However, there’s the difference in that once hit a tennis ball will bounce around the stage for a while, and you can fire off a couple at a time to really try and get all the targets. These targets range between clowns, hipsters, police, scientists, and PR guys. There’s also a bonus level where you can wallop the 10tons team with tennis balls too. The enemies will ragdoll across a level if hit powerfully, and this can be used to take down others.

There are quite a lot of levels split over a eight districts in the town of Oddington, and each is unlocked after you beat a certain number of stages in the previous one.  The levels themselves vary between incredibly easy to pretty hard an requiring a lot of luck. There were many stages where I got lucky thanks to how a tennis ball bounced. The balls aren’t your only weapon though, as sometimes you get exploding cans of Explodz which act like grenades. These are primarily used to either take out a couple of enemies, or to destroy obstacles that are in the way.

There’s quite a lot of obstacles ranging from scrap and glass, that if hit will destroy your ball. Then you have things like support beams and concrete blocks that can be used as surfaces to bounce the ball from to make it reach the more difficult places. Cans of Explodz are also place around some levels and when hit also act as bombs, sometimes taking out enemies and other times not really doing much.

In terms of how Tennis In The Face looks it is a rather colourful game, with a little humour thrown in. It has a simple layout and this is what makes it clear that Tennis In The Face originally started life as a mobile title, and has been tweaked for the big screen. In fact the original released almost a year ago for iOS and Android just under a year ago, so there is a chance you may have already played it.

For the price of £3.99 Tennis In The Face is a decent little game, and if you’re into the genre then it is worth picking up. It provides enough entertainment and while it won’t be considered a classic it scratches the itch when you want to play something for a couple of minutes. It does get repetitive if you play too many levels at once, and some levels do just need luck more than anything to complete. Overall though Tennis In The Face is a fun little game.

Score: 8/10