A Game of Tennis is a simple Pong Clone all the way down to its retro style. Developed by UberGeekGames and featuring multiple modes of play, Singleplayer, Offline & Online Multiplayer, and Global Scoreboards. It is currently priced for 200msp (£1.70).
As soon as you boot up the game you are greeted by a straightforward and simple menu allowing you to access all of the games features. The standard 'retro' mode sees you going up against an AI opponent - first to 5 wins. A Game of Tennis' core gameplay is almost identical to the retro classic - Pong. The bats move slowly, yet the ball increases in speed as the rally goes on, until one person chokes and lets a ball pass. There is only one other mode which sees you trying to get as many 'goals' as you can until your opponent reaches 5. I was disappointed to see there was no real evolution of the gameplay here other than a change in rules.
I wasn't able to experience the Online Multiplayer during my time with the game due to nobody playing online at the time, however I imagine it will hold up as expected! Local Multiplayer does exactly what it says on the tin, rather than pitting you against an AI opponent you instead have a nearby friend. It's a nice touch to see the Online and Offline multiplayer options however they are almost expected from a Pong clone nowadays.
The Advanced Mode lets your score be placed on a 'Global Scoreboard' letting you see how your skills match up against the rest of the world. However everytime I looked at the scoreboards my score was the only one present, despite me filtering it by Global, owning a Gold Account and being connected to Live.
Graphically the game is completely retro styled. It tries to look just like the old classic and succeeds. It would have been nice to see something similar to The Secret of Monkey Island where one could switch between Retro and Advanced graphics on the fly, however sadly there is only the old-school graphics option available. Also the audio on the game is just as simple - with literally only a couple of sounds in the game, the sound of the ball hitting the bat, and the ball hitting the walls.
Overall A Game of Tennis is really only designed for those who are itching to play the classic Pong in its original glory on modern TV's. Especially for 200 points I thought the utter simplicity of the title would make more sense for an 80 points game. Not to mention I'm almost certain there are many browser based flash games which can offer mostly the same gameplay and features for free! There are other pong games on the service which push the gameplay style forward more-so into the modern era, however if you are looking for a true representation of the original classic look no further.