Tennis…to the “excessive”
You’ll suppose by now Nickelodeon and its father or mother firm ViacomCBS would have come round to the concept that video games that includes their hottest IPs ought to be higher than mediocre, proper? I imply, we obtained one final yr with Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl, the cross-over preventing sport that gave it its greatest shot regardless of clearly missing the funds required to make it a contender. The low-budget high quality of most Nickelodeon video games makes them really feel like relics of a bygone period when each two-bit writer in the marketplace was scooping up as many family-friendly IPs as potential simply so they might make a fast buck squirting out a few video games with a sub-50 Metacritic rating. Regardless of the potential seen in All-Star Brawl, the Nickelodeon and Nicktoons branding continues to be ending up within the palms of builders that aren’t going that additional mile to make one thing particular, and nowhere is that extra evident than with the current launch of Nickelodeon Excessive Tennis.
Nicktoons characters aren’t any stranger to exhibiting up in genres popularized by Mario and firm. They’ve been in kart racers, occasion video games, platform brawlers, and with the current launch on Apple Arcade, an arcade tennis sport. Developed by Previous Cranium Video games, creators of final yr’s surprisingly good Masterchef: Let’s Prepare dinner!, the sport brings collectively a handful of Nicktoons for what are billed because the “most Excessive Tennis Matches EVER!” As you’ll be able to in all probability guess simply by the very fact it is a Nickelodeon sport, these matches are removed from something that might be thought of excessive.
As with all Apple Arcade video games, Nickelodeon Excessive Tennis will be performed on a wide range of Apple merchandise. I performed totally on my iPad, and should you play on both an iPad or iPhone, you’re caught enjoying in Portrait Mode, which is simply an terrible option to play all kinds of video games on an iPad. On these gadgets, the sport has a simple-to-understand, one-finger management scheme. You merely maintain your finger to the digital joystick to maneuver your character across the courtroom, and once they’re in a spot the place the ball will be returned, you purpose the shot with the identical joystick. On an iPhone, I think about it’s simple to play with simply your thumb. Not a lot on iPad.
When enjoying on my Apple MacBook, the cellular management scheme is recreated utilizing both a mouse or a touchpad. For no matter cause, the sport doesn’t appear to have an choice for an precise controller, so I’m fairly interested by how this performs on Apple TV. With no bodily controller, I by no means actually really feel like I’m in complete management of my characters. It’s not an enormous hurdle to beat as the sport isn’t too troublesome and most people I’ve performed on-line to date are rubbish at it, however my hope for a sport alongside the strains of Mario Tennis Aces was fairly rapidly dashed once I first took management of SpongeBob SquarePants.
It falls even farther from grace while you understand that, regardless of being on Apple Arcade, the sport ties its development to concepts from the free-to-play market. There’s a ton of loot to unlock and improve, together with new costumes and rackets. That’s not solely surprising given the best way the trade works as of late and participant retention and whatnot, however Nickelodeon Excessive Tennis goes manner past that by limiting characters, power-ups, and even shot varieties behind your profile stage.
Wish to lob a ball throughout the online? You want to attain stage 6 earlier than the sport will allow you to try this. Wish to unlock the Foggy Climate power-up? That gained’t be accessible till you attain stage 39. What if you wish to play as Rocko from Rocko’s Trendy Life? Then you definately higher be able to grind this shit out till you attain stage 59.
Like, I get the thought of getting unlockable characters, and I encourage extra video games to have these. However the complete roster outdoors of SpongeBob SquarePants is locked away till you elevate your profile stage excessive sufficient. Who thought that was a good suggestion? Think about if different sports activities video games did this, like the following Madden releases with solely the New York Jets playable at first till you elevate your stage excessive sufficient that you would be able to unlock the Houston Texans.
Making a Nicktoons tennis sport with fan-favorite cartoon characters and Nickelodeon-themed power-ups like Tommy Pickles’s ball or the signature inexperienced slime ought to have been a no brainer. However clearly, a couple of extra brains have been wanted within the room the place the large choices about this sport have been made. It’s on Apple Arcade, folks. You don’t have to preserve tying these video games to the exploitive concepts that run rampant within the free-to-play market.
CJ Andriessen
Simply what the web wants: one more white man writing about video video games.