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2018/05

Tennis World Tour Gameplay Video Criticized For Making John McEnroe Right-Handed

Bigben Interactive and Breakpoint Studios released the first full gameplay video for their upcoming tennis game, Tennis World Tour, which is due out for the Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC on May 22nd.

The video didn’t quite go over so well with tennis fans, as they pointed out a rather glaring flaw with the depiction of one of tennis’ most iconic and controversial figures: they forgot to make John McEnroe left-handed.

You can view the three minute gameplay video below to get a look at McEnroe in action against another tennis legend, Andre Agassi.

When the fans saw the right-handed depiction of McEnroe in action, they immediately called out Breakpoint for the error, which is especially egregious given that some of Breakpoint’s designers worked on the Xbox classic, Topspin.

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Beyond the criticisms of McEnroe not serving with the right hand, there’s also a pretty big issue with the animation snaps.

Between each animation set the characters snap back to the ready pose, or snap through the transitions, which is very immersion breaking.

For old games on the previous generation systems when tree blending wasn’t built into most game engines, it was understandable that there was a lot of snap and jittery when it came to animation transitions. But in this case, it’s rather disappointing that we’re still seeing some old-school animation techniques in play for a game made in 2018 for eighth generation home consoles.

Nevertheless, hopefully Bigben takes the criticisms to heart and has Breakpoint make the proper modifications so that the gameplay is accurate to the depiction of the tennis superstars that many tennis fans expect from a game made for today’s generation of sports fans and video game players.

The full game will feature classic tennis stars and current day players alike, including Roger Federer, Caroline Wozniacki, John Isner, Elias Ymer, Hyeon Chung, and Kyle Edmund.

You can learn more about Tennis World Tour by visiting the official website.

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