Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis

While there are multiple characters to control and different modes to enjoy -- which will be a treat for fans of Nick TV shows -- the shine wears off after a few plays. Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis serves up a good but not great game. The first issue you'll notice is that the controls aren't very good. It takes a lot of patience to learn how to play, even though there are tips like "wait for the ball to be close to your racket" (for better aim and power) or "the ball's speed increases after every hit," It's unexplained why there isn't an option for a left analog stick for movement, and a right stick to aim and hit the ball -- instead of relying on one central stick to do it all. You need to use a Bluetooth gamepad to be successful.

While on-court action can be fun, especially unleashing special attacks and unlocking (and upgrading) new characters, the gameplay itself is more or less the same regardless of who you control. There's a Story mode that takes you to different locations, but there aren't any between-match-animated sequences and the characters don't talk other than occasional odd comments (usually a celebratory comment or negative reaction). The menu screens aren't laid out well, either. While a large PLAY button launches a match against a rival player, if you want to play the Story mode, you need to tap on a small icon of a book in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. If you want to play Multiplayer, it's an even smaller icon in the top right of the screen that has two faces. Why wouldn't the developer have you press PLAY and then choose if you want a regular match, story, multiplayer, or events/quests? This game would be much better with better controls, a refined user-interface (including menu screens), and more unique characters (not just special moves) to make it a "must play" for fans of Nickelodeon franchises.