“The Depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how good I get, I’ll never be as a good as a wall.” -Mitch Hedberg

If you were a gamer in the 80s, when you got tired of searching, slaying, bombing, sword fighting and alien invasions, there was always Tennis for the NES to offer a little respite. Released in 1985, Tennis was the game you played when you wanted to relax some. While the game was a huge leap forward from Pong, there still wasn’t too much excitement or action involved with this game, except for the occasional ’smash’ hit, which generated maybe an extra half heart palpitation. This game was pretty much stress and worry free. The only trouble you could really get into was hitting the ball out of the court. The pressure of being out bounds…If it doesn’t kill you, it might just make you roll your eyes, or at worst shrug your shoulders.

The graphics in this game leave a lot to be desired – your opponents are nothing but palette swaps of each other, and the audience is made up of the same three heads used over and over again. And the soundtrack isn’t much better. The music is boring, and there are only two sound effects in the actual game. The sound effect for hitting the ball is a “beep” and if the referee calls an out you hear a “bleebeep!” But nonetheless, it was a good leisurely game for everyone, especially with Super Mario as the referee. And what a referee he was, kickin’ it in his ref chair, watching balls fly by and calling the shots. Like most of us, Super Mario seemed to thoroughly enjoy his time on the court during his days off from saving the Mushroom Kingdom.

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