SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 10 — Ahead of the year’s first Grand Slam, AO Tennis 2 is out for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC, offering a tonne of customisation and a personalised career path on top of improved set-to-set play.
With the two week 2020 Australian Open starting January 20, up-and-coming sports franchise AO Tennis is returning for a second shot at greatness.
The franchise debuted in January 2018, and, while AO Tennis was not initially well received — issues ranged from poor movement and shot control to sometimes jarring visuals and shallow game modes — Aussie developer Big Ant responded to common complaints with a volley of well-placed and well appreciated post-release updates.
It’s that experience of delivering incremental, noticable improvement that Big Ant brings to AO Tennis 2 which, according to a selection of release-day reviews, continues the trend in commendable fashion.
Earning a 71 per cent average through the OpenCritic review aggregator, it’s now a decent tennis simulator and, if not quite at the level of a Fifa Football or Madden NFL game, a big step up from its predecessor.
No doubt inspired by Fifa’s Journey mode, an AO Tennis 2 career now incorporates not only tournament matches and training sessions, but also press conferences, and a reputation system that even extends to on-court reactions.
There’s also an enhanced and impressively detailed content editor, through which players can create and share their own athletes, uniforms, and logos, as well as tournament rosters, specific match scenarios, and even entire venues.
It’s a canny move that opens up the possibility of much expanded game content from the AO Tennis community, lessening the disadvantages of a single-tournament license and allowing Big Ant greater focus on gameplay improvements.
AO Tennis 2 releases January 9, 2020 for PS4, XBO, Switch and PC. The PC version of its content editing suite, AO Tennis 2 Tools, is available free of charge through Steam. — AFP-Relaxnews
