Tennis in the Face Review

Tennis in the Face, developed by 10tons, has a title that begs for further investigation. Tennis in the Face is a physics/rag doll game in which you are going to play the roll of Mr. Pagassi a ex-professional tennis player whose career was ruined by energy drinks called Explodz. Now that he's been reduced to nothing he has decided to go after all those who are part of the Explodz conspiracy. You'll have to navigate through many different parts of the city, and defeat several different types of enemies, but in the end you'll get a chance at closing down the Explodz factory and ending their monopoly over the populace.

Graphically this game looks polished. You can tell that little details were thought of in the game from the animations and facial expressions of your tennis player to the many faces of those that must be defeated with a good dose of tennis to the face. Each level has its own layout, and there are many obstacles that will creep up in the level to make them more challenging. They can be pieces of scrap metal, panes of glass, or containers of balls, all will hurt of help you in some way depending on how the ball bounces.

The music has that laid back feel to it that sort of blends away once you get further into the game and more focused on trying to get through the levels.

The controls are really easy. You're going to be using the left analog stick for aiming, the d-pad if you want percision, and let me tell you you're going to need it on some levels, and the O button to launch the ball. Now one thing I will point out is that the ball is always going to shoot at maximum strength, so it doesn't matter where the actual target icon is on the screen.

So you're a tennis player out for revenge, and the only way that he's going to feel good about himself is if he takes down everyone who is standing in his way by knocking them out with a tennis ball, and in later stages you're going to notice the addition of a highly explosive can of Explodz, using their poison against them. I have to say that once I got the hang of this game I couldn't put it down. I wanted to go one more stage, and there are plenty of stages to play around in. There's definitely replayability in the stages if you are a completionist. See you don't have to be perfect to beat a stage, you're going to be given a set amount of tennis balls, cans, or a mixture of the two, but if you can do it in as few moves as possible you're going to get a crown for that level. In my game I've gone back to every level, and though I don't have a crown in every level I'm proud to say that I've only got I think 7ish spots without a crown. There's just something highly enjoyable about taking aim and bouncing a ball off several walls, or obstacles to knock out opponents. Oh and before I forget here's a list of opponents that you'll get to face off against. You'll be knocking over clowns, police officers, scientists, trendy males in their 30s (hipsters basically), and Explodz consultants. Each of them have a little twist to how to knock them over. With the police you have to get behind them or in the head, otherwise if you hit their shield they will just drop the shield and still stand. With the scientist you have to hit them twice once to get their protective suit off and the next to knock them out. The hipster actually comes in two varieties with and without a shield, they shield will bounce the ball off every time, and he will keep it until you get behind him or hit him in the head.

Now as most of these indie games go this title is not exclusive to the OUYA, but it is a lot of fun on the OUYA. So with that I have to say that this game definitely gets a 9.0 out of 10 in my book. It was definitely challenging but there's enough game there, and there's just enough give and take that I am always ready to play the game again.

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