LifeisXbox’s Tennis Manager 2021 review | Next to famous brothers such as the Football Manager series and the Pro Cycling Manager series, there is a new player in town. Rebound CG has released their latest addition, a game called Tennis Manager 2021. Do you have what it takes to manage your team and players in order to become the very best in tennis? In this game, you have to develop your facilities, plan the training, and come up with tactics to surprise the opponents and make sure that your player brings home the title.
ℹ️ | We played Tennis Manager 2021 for 9 hours on PC. This game is also available on mobile.
What we liked!
- Managing | In Tennis Manager 2021 there are a lot of things you can do. First of all, the games lets you pick an already existing academy or you can create your own one. After you have decided this, it all comes down to the managing part of the game. Here, you can create game plans, training schedules, in which tournaments you want your players to be, what buildings can be upgraded, etc. Just like other sports managing games there are a lot of options which can completely wreck you or bring you to glory, and it’s your job to find a good balance in this. As the name predicts, it’s a managing game, so when your player is out there on the court playing his match you can’t simply take control over it, instead you can change some things in the tactics in order to turn the match around when you are falling behind, or just want to try something different.
Somewhere between
- Graphics | Today the somewhere between area is a little bit crowded, but after the next 3 points you will get why. First of all, the graphics. When you are not in a match they are fantastic. Everything just looks finished, triple checked and you can tell they put a lot of effort into this. The menus are all very clear and you won’t struggle to find the page you are looking for. But then comes a moment when you enter a match. From here on it’s just one big ride downhill. The players and court all look very rushed as if there was no time or money anymore to work on some of the details. Yes, every player has a unique look but detail-wise, it’s a big nope for me. Also the game tends to get very laggy here with constant lag spikes. But as soon as you exit the match everything is back to normal and runs smoothly.
- Sound | Managing games aren’t really well know for their sounds, but Tennis Manager 2021 takes it to the next level. There is no background music or anything. Okay, to be honest, most of this types of games that have background sound I just mute over time because it’s nothing special, but to have nothing at all? Now you are probably wondering, are there no sounds at all? Well there are some sounds. If you enter a match there are the typical tennis sound-effects, a ball bouncing on the court, the empire calling the score and the crowd cheering but that is it. I expected a little more in the sound departement.
- Luck-based | Another strange phenomenon that I encountered while playing Tennis Manager 2021 is that the game can be really luck-based. For example, one of my players ranked 78th on a match against the number 2 of the ranking list, after a hard battle. But in the next match he lost without a single chance against a player who was ranked way below me. Okay, yes maybe the tactics didn’t work properly and the opponent just had a better day but a lot of these things kept happening and sometimes it feels like there is just someone flipping a coin and be like ‘now you win and now you lose’. Even if you have trained hard and made an optimal tactic for the match, it just feels off.
What we disliked
- No real names | Most of the sport managing games have the rights to use real names and clubs etc. Or at least 90% of the players that are in there have their real name. Not Tennis Manager 2021. Yes, there are a few but I think they can be counted on two hands. What makes it even worse is that instead of going fully with auto-generated players, which would have been a logical choice, they decided to change the name of the players so they are in the game but they don’t have to worry about legal stuff. so now you will have a game with players such as Novak Djorovic, Rafael Nabal, Roger Feberer, Kiki Berdens and my personal favourite Serena Willyams…
How long to beat the story | There is no story in Tennis Manager 2021
How long to achieve 100% achievements | 50+ hours
Similar with | Football Manager, Pro Cycling Manager
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