AO Tennis 2 | Xbox One Review

Big Ant Studios bring you AO Tennis 2, a tennis sim based on one of the four major tennis championships, the Australian Open. Big Ant expanded on it’s original with an in-depth Career mode and bringing over any user created courts to this new version that all players can access. This game features mechanics that the most avid tennis purists would be impressed with.

The Australian Open Takes Center Stage

Big Ant Studios is an Australian based developer. It only makes sense that they would center this franchise around one of the biggest sporting events on their continent; the Australian Open. This game features all courts utilized during the Open and even has a game mode dedicated solely to playing the Australian Open from the outlying courts of the opening rounds to center court of the finals. The studio took the time to lay out a very realistic environment for not just this event, but for the sport of tennis. Everything from the fuzz of the tennis balls to the referee’s reaction to crowd noise during play has been considered for this experience.

Career Mode as Deep as a Forehand to the Baseline

For this iteration, a very in-depth career mode has been added. You can take control of a fresh-faced rookie to an established star and move them up the ranks of the tennis world. Everything you do as a pro will affect how your career pans out. This includesthe types of events you participate in, how you interact with the media, and how you manage your schedule. You can plan your pro to participate in singles and/or doubles matches, train to hone your skills, or simply take a rest.

In playing matches, you literally start at the bottom. You’re pitted against the number one ranked player in the tournament and you work your way up from there. In training, you choose the type of shot you work on from your backhand draws to your serves. The training is similar in every instance where you aim for numbered squares of varying sizes and, in some cases, in order to advance your training. The better your session, the higher your skill rises. The better your performance overall, you can attract sponsors that will affect your overall health and your playing skills with the type of equipment companies that sponsor you. How you conduct yourself in matches and how you answer the media’s questions will, in the tennis world, make you the goat of the media or, simply, the G.O.A.T.

Mechanics That Will Bring Out Your Inner McEnroe

If you’re looking for any type of arcade action in a tennis game like Mario Tennis, this will not be the game for you. Even those fans of the Virtua Tennis series will struggle with the gameplay mechanics on the court. There is a power meter that builds as you hold the button down and will go from red to amber to green and the other way when you release the button to measure your accuracy. This meter is random to the realism of where you are positioned on the court in relation to the trajectory of the ball. This even changes with the numerous court surfaces the game features. This makes those general gamers frustrated as where you hit the “sweet spot” for a great shot will change during every point and game.

As you build your world class shot, you’re also aiming the shot across the court. In essence, you’re watching your power and accuracy of how you hit the ball, but you also have to watch where you aim the shot. If you try to hit a shot down the line but you botch the accuracy, you’re going to hit the ball out. Also, if you’re out of position where, in a real match, you’re not going to hit the ball, you won’t even take a swing. Credit must be given to the reality of how the game plays for those major tennis fans, but gamers will be very frustrated to the extremely minimal wiggle room there is for any errors.

On top of everything, there are several different types of shots you can hit depending on the button you push. These include putting fade on the ball as well as top spin if your opponent is out of position. Simply put, there is a lot to pay attention to for a tennis game, and your mechanics have to be extremely sharp for success. Players on “Amateur” level will be lucky to win one game out of five whole matches or even a few points in a single match.

As a side note, the load screens are frustratingly long. Some matches are loading upwards of three minutes to begin.

The Post Match Show

This is one of the most realistic looking and feeling tennis games out there. However, that realism far outweighs mechanics that will instigate a racket smashing reaction for gamers that must remember, in an instant, the are holding a controller instead.

This review is based off an Xbox One copy provided by Home Run PR for coverage purposes. It is also available on Nintendo Switch (UK), PlayStation 4 (UK), and PC via Steam.