Tennis For Two (1958, 2011)
Analog Computer Windows Simulator / iOS
William Higinbotham created this game for visitors to the Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1958.
I'm going to short review two recreations of the game, one for Windows PC and another for iOS.
Tennis For Two is like a side view Pong, but with 'bounce' physics and to be fair the game is relatively fun, providing the players agree to create and stick to some rules. You see the game itself doesn't incorporate many rules. An example of this is players take it it turns to hit the ball, but the ball can be hit anywhere on the screen. Therefore it's necessary to have a gentleman's agreement to a) only hit the ball if it's on your side of the court and b). do you have to let the ball bounce or do you allow volleys ?
Once you have pre-determined your own parameters and decided how you wish to keep score, it's a nice game to play and one I managed to get my 5 year old daughter to play and it held her attention for 5 whole games !
The Windows recreation is sparse to look at with a black and white representation of the original game, it plays fine using the mouse to angle the shots. The big advantage this has over the iOS version is that the simulator has a one player version where you play the Tennis-o-Tron which can help save you begging someone to play old games with you (in my case my young daughter).
The iOS version has a more authentic look/approximation of the original game (videos are available on You Tube) and even recreates the clicking sound of the original game, however this is 2 player only. The touch screen works surprisingly well as more often than not old games play horribly with touch screen controls. Another nice addition is the app provides images of a rebuild of the original system.
Overall it still plays a decent, fun game of electronic tennis and is worth a quick play with a second player.
Sut's Score: 3 out of 5
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