It’s not every day we here at RGM get to do a “Today in Gaming/Revenge of the License” mashup, but boy howdy, mark your calendars cuz today we’re making some gaming history by talking about gaming history featuring an historic sports title for the Sega Genesis/Megadrive. “But Michael,” I hear you thinking, “you don’t like sports games! Ronda Rousey spent more time beating Bethe Correia than you have playing Madden since 1993. Why are you writing about a tennis game?” Because, my non-telepathic, lesser-evolved readers, I know fun. And if you’re going to pretend to run back and forth while batting a small sphere over a net until one of you screws up, you might as well have fun doing it. Thus: 1992’s Jennifer Capriati Tennis.

As if you needed further proof that you have reached middle-age and are still wasting your life, Jennifer Capriati started kicking the collective asses of top-ranked Tennis champions in 1990 when she was thirteen years old. At an age when my worst fears revolved around getting lost in my new high school and failing to understand algebra, she was busy setting more “youngest ever” sporting records than Tiger Woods. By the end of her first professional season, she was ranked eighth in the world. The last time I was ranked eighth in the world at anything, I had to convince seven of my friends (three real, and four imaginary) to create a Fantasy Underwater Elephant Polo league. My Number 4 player kept surfacing at inopportune times costing me many points on defense, otherwise I’d have been at least sixth.

Title Screen

Two years later, Capriati was an even larger force in the world of Women’s Tennis–by the age of sixteen she held a gold medal from the ’92 Barcelona Olympics and was ranked the 6th-best female player in the world. Of course licensing was inevitable, and she lent her name and likeness to Renovation, which released Jennifer Capriati Tennis today in 1992, though our UK mates would recognize it as Grandslam Tennis, without Jennifer’s endorsement. For the US version, Capriati is the only named player to appear; the rest are all fictional characters made to resemble actual players from the same time period, so ‘Argus’ represents Andre Agassi, ‘Matsushi’ is a stand-in for Shuzo Matsuoka, ‘Supras’ is Pete Sampras and so forth.

The game is surprisingly customizable for a 90’s sports title. While it’s easy to just dive in and play as Capriati who, of course, is the top seed for the women’s category (because it’s her game, so shut up!), much of the fun comes from creating your own lobber to run the court. Options for gender, handedness, attire, and even a point-building system for determining what your player is best at are all present. Three different court varieties (hard, clay, or grass) all affect how the ball bounces. There’s a training mode so you can learn the ins and outs before throwing yourself at the mercy of Wimbledon. Four different tournaments in four different cities (Sydney, London, Florida, and Paris) offer you the chance to play around the world in one- or three-game sets featuring mixed-gender matches and teams if you want.

Awww, aren’t they adorable? 🙂

Got two players? Go head-to-head in a match or team-up on the AI for a round of doubles. And don’t worry if you don’t know the rules, since Jennifer Capriati Tennis automatically calls serving faults, out balls, and the score between rounds in a digitized voice (with a slight Japanese accent) so you don’t have to. It’s even nice enough not to penalize you for returning a shot that went out of bounds, a mercy not shown to real-life professionals.

The rage!

Controlling the game takes some practice, as each of the three buttons on the Genesis controller relates to a specific kind of swing. The ‘A’ button is a backhand or loft, ‘B’ is your normal return, and ‘C’ creates a lob shot. Winning matches requires both proper player placement and correct use of each type of shot, and the AI is very effective at higher levels so switching it up is pivotal. What I found most frustrating were the instances where my player just couldn’t move fast enough to return a ball, but since that’s part of the game in real life you can’t fault it (no pun intended) for accuracy.

All the excitement, none of the scraped up knees.

Sound effects are minimalist, with nothing but the ‘bonk’ noise of the ball bouncing off the racket, the bounce on the court, and the whiff of your swing if you fail to connect being the most common. The crowd applauds and whistles after each play. The only music you’ll hear is on the title screen, and you’ll forget about it as soon as you get into a game, but if you’re playing a sports game for the music you might want to consider a new hobby.

“FINISH HER!!”

Twenty-three years old today, Jennifer Capriati Tennis has aged well. Its customization options, simple-yet-complex controls, and bright, colorful 16-bit graphics all combine to make for an enjoyable way to kill thirty minutes or so if you just want to pop something in and play. It’s not Super Tennis, but if you don’t have a Super Nintendo and want an inexpensive, easy-to-find Tennis sim, this one does everything right. And as always, enjoy our traditional retro ad goodie offering:

Michael Crisman

In 1979, Michael Crisman was mauled by a radioactive Gorgar pinball machine. After the wounds healed, doctors discovered his DNA had been re-coded. No longer fully human, Michael requires regular infusions of video games in order to continue living among you. If you see him, he can see you. Make no sudden moves, but instead bribe him with old issues of computer and video game magazines or a mint-in-box copy of Dragon Warrior IV.


If he made you laugh, drop a tip in his jar at http://paypal.me/modernzorker


(If he didn't make you laugh, donate to cure his compulsion to bang keyboards by sending an absurdly huge amount of money to his tip jar instead. That'll show him!)