Introduction: I have a bit of a thing for tennis games. In fact one of my all time favourite games is Top Rank Tennis on the original 1990s Gameboy. As you can imagine the magic of playing Wii-sports tennis was an absolute boon for me. The first few weeks of my Wii's life were spent happily playing game after game, perfecting every shot. So I was excited to see Codemasters picking up the baton for inventive tennis games with a title for the DS that promised to use gestures rather than buttons to control the play; even more so as there hasn't been a decent tennis offering on our dual screen friend since launch, with only the laughably incomplete Topspin 2 coming even close to raising an eyebrow.

GamePlay: The main aspect of the game is its career mode, where you travel around the world with the tennis tour playing in the various tournaments. This takes an unusual approach as you start the majority of the tournaments with a by to the final or semi-final match, rather than having to work your way through the different rounds. Although quite helpful for the novice player this means you have a lot less invested in these tournaments and don't care so much about winning or loosing.

There is also a quick play option that will put you into a nicely configurable match against a player of your choice. This seemed solid enough, although the main focus of the game is obviously its career mode. Similar to quick play, you can also challenge another player to a match over local WiFi, either multi or single cart. Again you can configure the options to get things just how you want them. Whilst there is no true internet online play, it's nice to have the option of mixing it up with a suitably equipped friend or colleague over lunch. The gameplay is rounded off by the training mode, which does a reasonable job of introducing the different ways of hitting the ball. Whilst the descriptions are quite clear, although oddly typeset, the actual practice sessions are often hard to execute. For instance I was asked to practice my volleys and drop shots by having someone serve at me with no opportunity for a rally, not all that much help really.

Control: This control method is certainly novel and relatively easy to learn, even with the haphazard training mode. However, over time you discover that there is not the depth to the controls that we have become used to in our standard tennis control schemes. There needs to be more subtlety to make these sorts of controls work; if you could apply some after touch or bend to the shots or control the amount of spin I think this would really take off. The other problem is with controlling the player's movement around the court. I often found myself missing a shot because my short stroke was interpreted as a tap and vice versa. It seemed like it would have been better to leave the movement on the D-pad and introduce more complex shot selection via the shoulder button which remains unused.

Graphics: Graphically, Rafa Nadal is well animated if a little bland. The characters move as you would expect a tennis player to move. There is a slight sense of repetition of the animations after a while. A few more animation sequences would beef this up and turn the movement into a really convincing part of the game. There is a general lack of character and sparkle from the rest of the game from the menus to the backgrounds.

The other oddity about the graphics is the obsession with still images of Nadal. It seems at every turn you run into an action shot of Nadal; no opportunity is missed to make use of the franchise they have obviously paid a bit of money for. The problem is that this makes the game look rather dated.

Sound & Music: The sound effects are pretty good. The different shots all sound as they should, with a variety of swishes, pings and twangs. Your shoes make the odd squeak on the courts. This is all padded out by some suitably up beat music which moves the action along nicely.

Dual Screen Use: This takes us to the controls. The game must be commended for looking to innovate in a genre that, before Wii-sports, had hard and fast controls. It enables you to take your basic shots in a similar way to Touch Golf on the DS. You simply stroke the screen with the stylus to indicate the direct and strength of shot. A long upward stroke results in a strong shot to the back of the court. A long downward stroke gives you a shorter shot near the net. Sweep these gestures to the left or right to move the ball to either side of the court. This basic control can then be adjusted via the D-pad or buttons, depending on if you are left/right handed, to apply lobs, top spin and flat shots. Finally you can tap the screen to get your player to run to a location. The game doesn't make use of the microphone, although for a tennis game that is probably no bad thing.

Final Comments: Overall this is a game built around two elements. A novel control method and the Rafa Nadal franchise. The former of these dictates the quality of the game, whilst the latter provides some suitable window dressing. The problem is that there is a lack of depth in the control scheme. Once the novelty has worn off, you are left with a few frustrations and a limited number of options for each shot. Really, the opposite should have been true with the wonderfully analogue control input of the touch screen. Whilst we hope this game does well enough for a follow up that resolves some of these issues, we would suggest that you waiting for it to come down in price before you give it a shot.

Pro: Innovative controls
Con: A lack of depth and development
Final Score: 5.5

Reviewed by: Douglas Andrews