Building on the game that popularised contemporary tennis titles, Virtua Tennis, Fila World Tour Tennis promises to be the greatest simulation around.

Fila Tennis is typically 3D and looks particularly good on Xbox, despite the tennis courts' traditionally bland environments. There are several surfaces to compete on, such as grass, clay and indoor courts, each of which play differently.

After selecting from one of the game's brightly clothed playable characters, players can enter one o ... more >>

Building on the game that popularised contemporary tennis titles, Virtua Tennis, Fila World Tour Tennis promises to be the greatest simulation around.

Fila Tennis is typically 3D and looks particularly good on Xbox, despite the tennis courts' traditionally bland environments. There are several surfaces to compete on, such as grass, clay and indoor courts, each of which play differently.

After selecting from one of the game's brightly clothed playable characters, players can enter one of four game modes and compete with any of a remarkable 200 CPU opponents. Arcade and Challenge modes accommodate the more casual player looking for a quick set, while Career mode is far more involving and is an ongoing process ideally suited to a single player game.

But most importantly, multi-player mode supports up to four players in a doubles match, and as with most tennis games, this is where the real fun lies.

Ball physics are reasonably accurate, and players seem to move around the variously-surfaced courts the way you would expect them to, thanks to over 80 motion captured actions.

Truth be told, Fila Tennis isn't really the best tennis simulation available, and neither is Virtua Tennis or Actua Tennis. But what Fila Tennis loses in realism it makes up for in sheer playability. Tennis games were never designed to be deadly serious, and Fila Tennis is a fine example of what tennis games should be all about. << less