Good game once you get the ITST online mod with all the real players/courts. Very sim-like experience.

Really tactical, great depth, love it!

Well, athmosphere is fine.

Getting started with a controller (xbox) is a little bit work (for me), but tehre are helps/config:
http://www.managames.com/tennis/doc/Tennis_Elbow-Tennis_Game.html#strikes

Espacially for xbox:
http://www.managames.com/Forum/topic15-10058.php


So if someone plays with controller do not hesistate to soon and have a look, the dev is a nice one as i learnt to know, giving feedback and help, so if you like tennis and oldschool enjoy.

The gameplay is designed to mimmick the tennis played by the pros on tour. All players have a set of stats spread into different categories (like Forehand, Backhand, Volley, Service, Movement and Special Shots) accompanied by a specific playing styles (Defender, Power Baseliner, Volleyer etc). All these attributes will determine how powerful and precise your player is and also how many errors they make. The aiming system takes some time to get used to, but you can easily configure the difficulty most suitable for you and practise in the Warmup Mode.

The graphics, reminiscent of the early 2000s, are the only downside of the game, while sounds are realistic (and different) for every surface.

Career (or World Tour) Mode is extremely detailed, with tournaments every week of the year (including Davis Cup and World Tour Finals championships), full rankings, head to head and other in-depth stats. You can create a new player or choose from the huge list of recent tennis stars and legends, from both the men's and women's tours.

Perhaps the best aspect of the game is the huge ammount of mods made by a dedicated community on managames.com. You can add clothes, animations, courts, players or even completely overhaul your World Tour in order to perfectly simulate real life tournaments (for example ATP Patch and WTA Mod).


I played way too much.

Don't make the mistake I made with the Four Pack. Read this first. "You can play doubles with 4 human players on 1 computer, or on 2 computers with 2 players per computer by LAN or Internet, but not on 4 computers."

I've played this game for a few years now and I am glad it's finally on Steam! The developer's hard work has finally paid off and the game will finally get the recognition it deserves.

Tennis Elbow 2013 offers gameplay unlike any other tennis game; it's an amazing simulation that is realistic, fluid, challenging, and most importantly, fun. It will take a bit getting used to at first as the game is not forgiving when it comes to placement and timing of shots. However, once you get the hang of it, hitting clean winners becomes so overwhelmingly satisfying.

The game comes with a LOT of character customization similar to RPGs by allowing you to choose your character's playstyle and increase your stats/effectiveness in various aspects such as: forehand, backhand, serving, volley, etc.

Mods are also an option which greatly enhances the quality of the game. The addition of newer and cleaner 2D/3D courts as well as player models, swing animations, sound effects, clothing, and rackets allow you to customize the game the way you want it to look and play.

The most common complaint that I would expect to hear from people viewing the trailers are the quality of the graphics. Though it may not be up to par to the other tennis games out there, the game play is what compensates for it. As mentioned before, you can install mods that makes the game more visually appealing. If you can look past this flaw, I can reassure that you will love the actual game play.

Tennis Elbow 2013 is a MUST for tennis fans.

10/10

Fantastic tennis game, just:

- Do not expect it to be like Virtua Tennis or other arcade tennis, because it's not.
- Do not expect to just start winning, the system takes getting use to.
- Do read the modding forum on here and install mods early on (you even get an achievement for it!).
- Do read the manual, available at the website. Seriously, it makes the control system make more sense.
- Do turn on ALL of the PREVIEWS when you first start. It's a wonderful crutch for learning.
- Do not expect graphics to be wonderful, but did you come to play tennis, or look at pretty things?

Once all that is done, and you lose your first few matches horribly, it starts making sense and getting fun!

Key supplied by developer for review.
(Read on for the full review!)

Whether in short bursts or long durations, this a tennis sim with depth that will keep you engaged and challenged.


+Depth
+Realism
+Longevity
+High skill ceiling

-Graphics: Probably the game's worst but most insignificant fault.
-Controls: A bit clumsy, hard to learn, but intuitive once grasped or mastered.

+/- Sound: Works, minimal, true to life, but low quality.



Welcome to Tennis Elbow 2013, a tennis simulation featuring painstakingly realistic physics at the expense of graphical fidelity. It supports warmup, practice, campaign, and multiplayer modes, via double or single matches.


The gameplay in Tennis Elbow 2013 is fast and fluid, but the controls may leave you scratching your head at first. I spent a long time trying to figure out how to not hit the ball straight to the center of the court before figuring out there's a default shot that is performed even if you don't take one. So not only did the default kb+m controls not seem to allow me to take actual shots, but when using a controller, I was under the impression the shoulder buttons would, but they did not. Then I tried using the face buttons, and everything changed.

So in TE13, in order to get the ball where you want it, you have to move to get to it, move correctly to take the correct type of shot, and also move to aim the shot once you start to take it. If that sounds like a lot to deal with in a split second, then you are correct, but it is so much fun getting it right and the amount of precision with which you can crush your enemies with once you lock it down.

As stated earlier, there are a variety of gamemodes. The AI is quite competent, featuring various levels of difficulty as you ascend the ranks. If it does particularly well or poorly against you, you can opt for higher or lower difficulties. The scoring is...well, like tennis, and the hitboxes for the racket are good. There is an RPG factor here with the extensive character customization present, where you can even select your character's preferred playstyle.

I should also briefly mention that the animations are actually pretty nice, and there are quite a few. I don't care for the backpedaling animation, though. At any rate, it is a game that isn't especially fun to learn, is fun to play, and is very fun to learn to do well and play well with.


So you're not going to see the shadows and leaves falling off of trees. There will be no sunshafts or lens flares. You won't see much lighting at all, actually. You won't see everything fluttering slightly in the breeze. The character models even, are pretty poor. The physical build isn't too awfully bad, but the lack of lighting and shading and quality textures especially stands out on them, and the UI...the UI is straight out of the 80s.

The graphics aren't bad exactly (excluding the UI,) everything is functional and represents what it is supposed to. They just aren't good. In any way. They would be bad if you consider anything not having good or amazing graphics bad, but in the end, this is a game about playing tennis. Even more, it's a simulation focused on tennis. You don't need flashy effects when you hit the ball, or cinematic angles distracting you. You just need to see yourself, your opponent, and the ball going between you two.


The audio quality in Tennis Elbow 2013 is a bit low. There won't be any unrealistic uproar of a crowd 10 times bigger than any crowd ever present, nor any exaggerated effects involving fire and lazers when you hurl your ball 10 meters into the ground creating a crater amidst an explosion. What you get is simple sounds that are there when they are supposed to be. They are realistic in that sense. Hit a ball with a racket, you hear a ball being hit with a racket. On the other hand, the recording quality and the sounds themselves could be much better, but again I must stress that this is a sports sim and not a walking simulator meant to immerse you in deep story and compelling visuals and audio.


So, it gets one component majorly right, and two others, sometimes very important ones, very wrong. "What gives?" you might say, "since when is getting just one thing right good enough?" Well, I will tell you. It's enough when it is this damn fun to experience, however, I should also point out that the game is very capable of being modded, and many people have created packs featuring better/different sounds, player models, animations, courts, etc.

What you will get if you purchase this game is a very real feeling of playing actual tennis. In that regard, the game is nearly perfect. So in conclusion:

I recommend Tennis Elbow 2013 for any enthusiast, at full price.

If you just "like tennis" like me, I still think it is worth full price, but you might consider a sale.

If you're just interested in getting a competitive or realistic experience, or grabbing any sim that exists, but don't especially love or even like tennis, I would recommend it still, but on sale.


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First off, yes, the graphics aren't very good. Sometimes the players move a bit awkwardly and the overall look of the game (UI in particular) is quite dated. Seeing this initially turned me off from the game, but it seemed like people really enjoyed its accurate gameplay. I had previously played Virtua Tennis 3 on the PS3 and later purchased and enjoyed Top Spin 4 because it was less arcade-y. But Tennis Elbow 13 blows both out of the water in terms of precise gameplay that really simulates tennis.

There are a number of things about it that I really like, but the most notable is the realism when it comes to unforced errors. In most other tennis games, it's either impossible to make an unforced error (other than double faulting) or it's ridiculously difficult and will only happen after your player is extremely tired. This means that you can paint the lines on basically every shot without any risk involved. In this game, you have to precisely aim your shot and if you aim too close to the line, you may miss. If you're in an awkward position when you do it, there's a much bigger circle of uncertainty around your aimed shot, so you can easily miss if you go for too much.

Some people might have issues with the lack of licensed players, but I personally find the obvious knock-offs absolutely hilarious. Riccardo Fidirir, Nenad Djakavec, and Ruben Nodol will never fail to make me laugh. (Plus, I think there may be mods that you can download to make these accurate)

There's also a ton of granularity when it comes to skill customization and opponent level (4 levels, 10 sublevels per level). Overall, I would really recommend this game to people who want a true tennis sim. The graphics don't really bother you after a bit because the gameplay is so good and immersive (the satisfaction of struggling to beat an opponent, but then succeeding 4-6 7-6(4) 7-6(5) is fantastic). However, if you want a more arcade-y game with great graphics, Virtua Tennis is probably the way to go.



For anyone who is planning on getting this game, I really recommend using a gamepad. I personally use a PS3 controller connected to my Macbook via Bluetooth and have mapped the D-pad for movement, the X button for topspin, the square button for slice, the circle button for an accelerated shot, and the triangle button for a defensive lob. I find that it works very well. (Normally, I prefer to use the analog stick for movement, but you also use the movement input for shot aiming, which requires a lot of precision. Thus, I use the D-pad, which I got used to pretty quickly)

Best PC tennis simulation ever. You can find many mods all over the web to add real players, venues, scoreboards, sounds etc. etc.