Commodore‘s go at tennis, as part of its series of C64 sports games, is a pretty poor game overall. It’s got a side-on view and the feel and presentation of the game are lacking.

Like Pong, International Tennis has side-to-side gameplay, with the small animated players running across an isometric tennis court, hitting the ball horizontally. Of course, to return a ball you’ve first got to be within reach of it, so learning how to move is just as important as learning your button-press timings.

Commodore‘s International Tennis isn’t much fun to play, to be honest, and other little niggles also help bury it (like, for example, when an opponent serves, they immediately turn their back on you for a number of seconds afterwards, before then turning back to the game (it really takes you out of the moment when you see your opponent not paying attention!)

It just doesn’t have the spark of Commodore‘s football or basketball games…

International Tennis was first published by Commodore in 1985, and was designed by Judy Braddick and programmed by Andy Finkel.

Commodore‘s sports games for C64 were often published as cartridges, as well as on cassette and disk, although I don’t know if this game ever was. It doesn’t look like it. If anyone knows any different, please comment below.

More: International Tennis on CSDb