All Star Tennis '99 (USA) - Software MAME

Nintendo 64 cart. published 25 years ago:

All Star Tennis '99 © 1999 Ubi Soft.

This Pak generally plays like a sim, although 120 mph serves and an option to litter the court with Wiley Coyote-ish bombs certainly liven things up. There are three difficulty levels and plenty of realistic grunts from the athletes, Oohs from the crowd and Quiet please exhortations from the line judge - who, incidentally, never makes a bad call.

All Star Tennis '99 boasts eight stars:
Amanda Coetzer
Conchita Martinez
Jana Novotna
Jonas Bjorkman
Michael Chang
Gustavo Kuerten
Richard Krajicek
Mark Philippoussis

There are also four fictional players, including two women sporting microminiskirts that would make Ally McBeal blush. All players will have six basic shots, including slams, lobs and drop shots, and each will have two special shots, such as Michael Chang's vicious two-handed backhand.

The bodies are nicely proportioned, but greater detail would have been nice. With no more than four characters appearing simultaneously, it's not as if the mighty N64 CPU has to push tons of polygons around the screen. The motion-capture moves are generally smooth.

Clearly aimed at an international audience - the screen text comes in five languages - All Star Tennis travels to eight exotic courts around the world:
United Kingdom
Greece
California
France
Italy
Saudi Arabia
Japan Australia

Although publisher Ubi Soft did not secure licenses for actual tournaments, the UK's grass court is clearly modeled on Wimbledon. In fanciful contrast, the hard Greek court looks like it's nestled in the ruins of an ancient theater.

The players are evenly balanced, so pitting a woman against a man makes for a competitive match. Besides exhibition matches, All Star Tennis will allow as many as eight players to compete in a singles tournament.

Bomb Tennis drops a short-fused bomb wherever the ball hits. If an athlete runs across it or stands nearby when it goes off - boom! Despite the zany props, Bomb Tennis is a lot less arcade-like than you might think. The athletes' skills are unchanged, so the tactics shift subtly to avoiding certain parts of the court while trying to coax your rival towards bombs your shots have left.

TECHNICAL
CART ID: NUS-NTNE-USA
BARCODE: 0 8888 13002

TRIVIA
Released on January 26, 1999 in North America.

Known export releases:
[EU] "All Star Tennis '99 [Model NUS-NTNR-EUR]"

STAFF
Smart Dog
Programming: Dave Thompson, Dave Saunders, Mathew Twigg, Byron Blay, Ian Tomkins
Graphics & 3D Modeling: Ashley Routledge, Jessica Williams, Kam Chana (as Kamaljit Chana), Michael Woods, Tom Dickens
Music and Sounds: Gerard Gourley
Voice Overs: Ian Wilson, Sissy Stone
Voice Recordist: Des Tong
Motion Capture: Televirtual
Development Manager: John Turpin
Producer: Dave Thompson
Special Thanks To: Mark Wallace

Ubi Soft
Producer: Gérard Guillemot
Project Managers: Ahmed Boukhelifa, Vincent Minoué
Game Designer: Lionel Rico
US Marketing Manager: Megan Byrne
Packaging Design: Mari Sakai
Photography: Michael Baz
Testing Manager: Jonathan Pépin
Testing: Jonathan Gosselin, Jonathan Moreau, Mathieu Fortin, Charles Richer
Special Thanks: David Bamberger, Jennifer Miller, Gwenaëlle Thebault-Tibolla, Guillaume Bloch, Sandra Yee, Melanie Montes, Melanie Melton

CONTRIBUTE
Edit this entry: https://www.arcade-history.com/?&page=detail&id=57578&o=2