PS4 offerings will also see expansion, with the addition of Monster Hunter Stories (PS4) and Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin (PS4) just a month before the release of Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. Other games coming to the subscription service are racing game Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown (PS5), narrative action adventure games Neva (PS5) and Season: A Letter to the Future (PS4, PS5), indie title Venba (PS5), and sports game Rugby 25 (PS4, PS5). These games will be available for PlayStation Extra and Premium tier subscribers. The PlayStation Classics catalog will see the addition of Disney Pixar Wall-E (PS4, PS5), which was originally released on PS2 in 2008.

Along with this, Sony has also confirmed new additions to its PlayStation Plus Classics catalog for next month. The line-up, only available to Premium tier subscribers, includes PSP fighting game Tekken Dark Resurrection, and PlayStation classic rail shooter Time Crisis, as caught by Gematsu.

This announcement comes just a few days after rumors first popped up of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 coming to the subscription service. The 2023 action-adventure title revolves around Peter Parker and Miles Morales taking on a host of new foes from Spider-Man’s rogues’ gallery. A key element of the story is the presence of the Symbiote.

While Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 coming to the service makes sense given its 2023 release date, Monster Hunter Stories and its sequel coming to PlayStation Plus is especially interesting since the third game in the turn-based RPG franchise is slated for release on March 13th.

While the Stories series has largely focused on telling their own standalone stories (no pun intended), they tend to have a throughline in the form of their combat systems that blend the traditional Monster Hunter gameplay loop with turn-based action with an emphasis on befriending monsters as well as fighting them.

For those looking to check out Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection before release, a demo was released earlier this month offering some early-game sections. Capcom has also confirmed that players will be able to carry over their progress into the full game when it finally comes out.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection also got a trailer earlier this week, offering an overview of the story and the history of the Riders. The trailer features narration by Elizabeth Rose Bloodblame of Hololive English, and focuses quite a bit on the bonds between Riders and their Monsties (Monster Besties). Along with the wide roster of monsters that the series is known for, Stories 3 will also feature newer ones from Monster Hunter Wilds, like Rey Dau and Arkveld. Among the returning monsters, Monster Hunters 2‘s Yama Tsukami has also been confirmed for the game.

Big Ant Studios continues to fill that void, but to say its consistency with Cricket games has been erratic would be an understatement. It went from the well-known Don Bradman series to the respectable Ashes Cricket and took four years to deliver the incredibly underwhelming Cricket 22.

Back again, once again, with Cricket 24, there are signs of a more polished presentation, albeit one still dotted with jank; favorable bowling and batting systems that reward fast response, even if the latter can feel erratic at times; and much more. It’s slightly improved over the previous game, but still a very uneven release that needs more time and polish. The foundation is there, but a lot more is required.

"The crowd atmosphere, unfortunately, can be a little “meh” at times. You certainly hear them now and again, and there’s also decent fervor from hitting a four or six."

Right off the bat, Cricket 24 does look better than Cricket 22. In terms of fidelity, it’s not going to beat the NBA 2Ks or EA Sports titles of the world, and that’s okay, as it mostly nails the overall atmosphere of professional Cricket.

The starting coin toss (though I have no clue how it even works), the teams singing their national anthems, the walkouts, and even the mannerisms of umpires as they call Wide Balls and Wickets or ask for the third umpire’s take on my idiotic attempt at a third run are all rendered mostly well. Seeing all those little animations and reactions from the players between shots is also neat.

The crowd atmosphere, unfortunately, can be a little “meh” at times. You certainly hear them now and again, and there’s also decent fervor from hitting a four or six. However, it just doesn’t feel quite there yet. Even the pyrotechnics in T20 games, when it happens, is a tad underwhelming.

Crowd details are average at best, while players look decent, if a bit wooden in their expressions. The struggle with facial animations is probably most apparent when you meet your coach in Career Mode. As noted earlier, whether it’s a budget issue or something else, the players don’t exactly bear the strongest resemblance to their real-life counterparts. There are also a few animation gaffes, as players don’t always transition between actions smoothly. At one point, I saw the ball magically teleport from a rival bowler’s hand to the other before a toss, which was distracting, to say the least.

"However, above all else, the music deserves special mention. It’s awful. The main menu “tracks” feature tunes looped endlessly, and it feels like some faux rock stuff better at home on an episode of Eastbound and Down."

The stadiums are fine, structurally. Maybe it’s the shading or lighting, but some textures can feel flat and bland. Maybe it elicits those Cricket feels if you close your eyes, but the fidelity and overall immersion still leave much to be desired even when not compared to bigger-budget games.

The sound effects are serviceable, and there’s decent commentary, though it’s limited. Some lines repeat continuously, to the point where the commentators seemingly have a vendetta about the ball being there to be hit. The next step was probably emerging from the commentary box and shaking me wildly, asking why I wasn’t hitting it, which would have at least been a change of pace.

However, above all else, the music deserves special mention. It’s awful. The main menu “tracks” feature tunes looped endlessly, and it feels like some faux rock stuff better at home on an episode of Eastbound and Down.

At the outset, there seems to be a lot of content available. You can enter a match immediately, partake in The Ashes, or choose from various World Championships. There are also several difficulty options to customize, which is pretty cool. Oddly enough, all of the Indian Premier League Teams aren’t here. At least Cricket Academy is available for the community to add these in, as they’ve been doing for years with other teams.

"Some enjoyment can be had from the gameplay, even if the systems aren’t drastically different from the last game."

The initially promised Pro Team, which seemed like Big Ant’s take on Ultimate Team, is missing. You can’t create a custom Cricket team or complete weekly challenges or anything like that. Oddly enough, any mention of the mode has been scrubbed from online listings, so that’s a shame.

There is Career Mode, where you create a character, choose a team, interact with your coach to dictate your style and what you want to work on and then play in hopes of selection. I didn’t feel that manifest too strongly while playing, and trying to focus on my play as a rookie player while leaving the team to their own devices didn’t feel very conducive.

Still, there is an extensive suite of customization options for everything from your look to the bowling style. Various Perks provide buffs in different aspects of batting, bowling and fielding. Fatigue management also returns with saunas and massages, though you must account for the days available. If you played Cricket 22, then Cricket 24’s Career Mode will feel very familiar, for whatever it’s worth.

Some enjoyment can be had from the gameplay, even if the systems aren’t drastically different from the last game. While bowling, you still choose between different delivery types like Cross Seams, Bouncers, and more. You can dictate various types of jumping and release and pitch slower or faster, alternating strategies on the fly. I wasn’t too high on bowling initially, but utilizing different tactics to effectively lockdown a batter and control the field could be fun. Just don’t expect any major new additions or tactics thrown in.

"The movement necessary for legwork also feels stilted and unintuitive at times. I settled on adjusting it once after a failed shot and mostly forgetting about it."

Batting is the main appeal, and it’s highly reactionary, as you try to remember whether to step on the back foot and to go Defensive when faced with a full pitch or stay on the front foot and try to hit a four or six on normal pitches. Mastering the timing and taking a gamble on your legwork and whether to attack or go aggressive can be enjoyable.

It can also be frustrating if you fail to properly gauge the timing or shot choice since it’s all decided in those scant moments. The movement necessary for legwork also feels stilted and unintuitive at times. I settled on adjusting it once after a failed shot and mostly forgetting about it.

Oddly, the responsiveness when batting came across as fairly random at times. When I started without knowing anything about the gameplay systems, it was Aggressive shots all the way, simply taking note of the positions of fields to prevent them from catching, and we did great. As I progressed and learned more about the mechanics, things seemingly fell off a cliff in timing.

It occurred more in Career Mode, which may have been due to how my stats worked, but playing as a “big hitter” and waffling these shots when I was cleaving through the competition in regular play felt awful. Things were drastically better outside of Career, but that randomness never fully disappeared.

"Unless you want a new Cricket game to play or are counting on the community to fill any gaps in content, Cricket 24 is difficult to recommend."

The AI also leaves room for improvement. Sometimes, your opponents are on point with their fielding, catching hits from out of the blue, chasing after shots and adjusting their positioning accordingly. However, at other times, they failed to capitalize on a wicket during some of my runs. My team is mostly on point when fielding, though my overall movement felt stilted For something marketed as a “complete overhaul” over last year, fielding – like many things – doesn’t sport any drastic improvements.

While I haven’t encountered too many bugs, there was an issue which saw my players randomly take a run between balls and get caught out. It seemed like a misclick at first, but happened again even when not touching the controller. As if the odd randomness in batting wasn’t enough to ruin the innings, there’s my team seemingly betting on who can earn the lamest Walk of Shame.

As a sequel, Cricket 24 doesn’t feel like a massive step forward from its predecessor. While its overall presentation has improved, the gameplay feels very familiar, with a few new additions. Some of these, like the new fielding system, are almost inconsequential, and there’s no word on the promised Pro Team. Also, as much as Big Ant Studios has succeeded in capturing the atmosphere of a Cricket match, it still lacks fidelity and polish.

Maybe things will improve drastically in the next game. For now, unless you want a new Cricket game to play or are counting on the community to fill any gaps in content, Cricket 24 is difficult to recommend.

This game was reviewed on PS5.

One of the biggest headlining additions is Pro Team, a new Ultimate Team-like mode that will see players collecting player cards to build their dream team, complete with an Auction mode. Pro Team will allow players to take on single player weekly challenges in addition to playing against other players online.

Career Mode will also see various improvements, chief among them being players being afforded greater control over what sort of a cricketer they want to be- you can focus on specializing in shorter versions of the game for ODI or T20 cricket, you can focus on Test matches, or you can try and be a jack of all trades.

Big Ant Studios is also promising the biggest collection of licensing for a cricket game to date for a number of tournaments around the world, including The Ashes, the KFC BBL and Weber WBBL, The Hundred, the Caribbean Premier League, and a number of Indian T20 teams that will be announced at a later date- whether the latter refers to IPL teams remains to be seen. Meanwhile, licenses for major international teams like Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland, and the West Indies will also be included, as will over 50 detailed official stadia.

Of course, players can expect The Ashes to receive special treatment as well- the mode will boast unique cutscenes, special commentary, press conferences, team training sessions, and more. Additionally, players will be able to play not only as either Australia or England, but also as specific individual players.

On the pitch action is also seeing some changes, with Cricket 24 featuring a new and overhauled fielding system that, according to the developers, will be “the most realistic and responsive fielding controls ever seen in a cricket video game.” Meanwhile, support for full cross-platform multiplayer has also been confirmed.

Cricket 24 will launch for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC in June, with free current-gen upgrades also offered. The game will also launch for the Nintendo Switch in November.

Big Ant Studios has been shouldering the responsibility of making good Cricket games for a while now, and after have taken a couple of years off following Cricket 19, they’ve returned with Cricket 22, a game that promises major improvements to the series’ formula. Thankfully, for Cricket fans, there’s plenty of enjoyment to be found here- but for the most part, that’s down to the fact that there just aren’t a great many alternatives out there. Cricket 22 is a solid, enjoyable game, but it’s more than a little rough around the edges, and not nearly as much of a step up above its predecessor as many would have hoped for.

"Cricket 22 is a solid, enjoyable game, but it’s more than a little rough around the edges, and not nearly as much of a step up above its predecessor as many would have hoped for."

One of the biggest issues found in the game is also one of the ones that’s most instantly apparent- the production values just aren’t up to scratch, especially in terms of what you’d want to see in a sports game. Top-notch visual and audio design have long been core pillars of this genre, more so than many others, because that, after all, is where the pomp and style of a television broadcast of an actual match is conveyed most often. Cricket 22 falters in this area, just as much as its predecessor did. Player likenesses are, to be fair, pretty good (at least for the teams that come with official licenses), but everything else is… well, not.

Pitches and stadiums look bland and lacking in detail, with the crowds and distant background elements in particular looking rough and muddy. Audio design is lackluster, and the crowds don’t sound nearly as energetic as they should. Given the inherently slow pace of Cricket as a sport, you’re obviously not going to get the kind of stadium atmosphere in a Test match as you would, say, in the Manchester Derby in the Premier League, but even the T20 finals in this game feel and sound disappointingly tame. It doesn’t help that the commentary sounds completely dead, like they’re bored out of their mind and would rather be anyone else, whether it’s the cadence of their words you’re talking about, or even the fact that half the time, the stuff they say doesn’t make much sense within the context of the whole match. An over that’s gone for two boundaries doesn’t suddenly become a good one for the fielding team just because its last two deliveries were dot balls- but clearly, Cricket 22’s commentators, in all their wisdom, disagree.

But of course, you have to look at the big picture- Cricket doesn’t have as big of an audience in gaming as something like football does, and this game in particular has been made by a team that’s significantly smaller and has far fewer resources at its disposal than the likes of EA Sports or 2K. Cricket 22 was never going to be a hyper-polished game with best-in-class visuals and sound, and as long as you go in with your expectations in that department firmly in check, you won’t be too disappointed (or at least surprised). It is nonetheless disappointing, especially because Cricket 22 doesn’t seem to have made many meaningful improvements over Cricket 19 in this area.

"Cricket 22 was never going to be a hyper-polished game with best-in-class visuals and sound, and as long as you go in with your expectations in that department firmly in check, you won’t be too disappointed"

Thankfully, when it comes to the on-pitch action – which, after all, is what counts the most – Cricket 22 is a far better experience. Batting is far more fun than bowling, which has been a rule of thumb for the sport for as long as it has existed, and continues to be so in this game as well. There are two control schemes on offer, and while I personally enjoyed the arcade style far more, owing to its reliance on button presses and more direct control inputs, both of them are, by and large, implemented pretty well. Nailing the timing of your shots and picking your strikes carefully depending on what kind of delivery you’re facing and what field you’re batting against remains consistently enjoyable on a fundamental level. Whether or not you’ll be able to sit through an entire Test match is entirely down to you and how much patience (or love for the sport) you have, but for those who’re looking for bite-sized chunks of fun rather than longform play sessions, Cricket 22 has a robust enough mid-match simulation tool to help with that.

Bowling and fielding feel more uneven than batting for several reasons. Meanwhile, where the fielding is concerned, issues boil down largely to animations and the AI. Animations are jerky and imprecise, and the AI is wildly inconsistent. When you’re the fielding side, your players can often move at a snail’s pace, and waste precious seconds between picking up the ball and throwing it back to the pitch that could have been crucial in a potential run-out. Meanwhile, when you’re on the batting side, all too often you’ll find opposing fielders dropping the easiest of catches that even I wouldn’t miss (and let’s be honest, I’m not good at all), which can also take you out of the experience.

Meanwhile, another major pillar of the Cricket 22 experience is the Career mode- which is actually quite a lot of fun. As your career begins, you pick your general attributes, decide which club team you want to start your career in, and the take it from there. Rather than just being a collection of matches one after the other, Cricket 22’s career mode also peppers in things such as training sessions in the nets and sessions in the gym, the latter of which comes with fun little minigames and actual consequences on how much your attributes improve. You can also use rest days to rest in a variety of ways to relieve your fatigue, from going to the sauna to heading on a multi-day retreat. Performing well in matches and training, meanwhile, also sees you leveling up and improving various stats. It isn’t an awfully meaty and complex experience, and the cutscenes and voice acting are unsurprisingly bland, but it’s still an engaging and addictive experience that should especially suit the tastes of fans of the sport.

"Thankfully, when it comes to the on-pitch action – which, after all, is what counts the most – Cricket 22 is a far better experience."

Ultimately, there’s no getting around the fact that the reason for Cricket 22 being the best Cricket game in recent memory is that, well, there haven’t been an awful lot of those in several years. In an ideal world, this would be a far more polished and far more feature-rich game with better AI, better animations, and better production values in general. But it doesn’t seem like we’re going to get to that point anytime soon- so until then, I’ll gladly take Cricket 22 and what it has on offer. Because you know what? For now, this is good enough.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Career Mode

One of the biggest overhauls over Cricket 19 has been the Career Mode. It’s now more narrative-focused with characters that will guide and interact with the player throughout the experience. After selecting a manager from the outset, you’ll customize your own character and start training, attending press conferences (where you can develop a good or bad relationship with the media depending on your answers), meeting with doctors (and dealing with any injuries that may arise), consulting with trainers and coaches, and much more. Players will also have to work to keep fans and sponsors happy, and there are extensive cutscenes for all of these interactions including Player of the Match scenes. It’s possible to practice at the nets or hit up the gym to partake in mini-games which will increase your overall strength and stamina.

Fully-Licensed Teams

Along with teams from Australia and England, Cricket 22 has expanded its roster significantly with the addition of teams from the West Indies, New Zealand and Ireland. The fully licensed rosters include players like current Australian Men’s captain Pat Cummons and Australian Women’s captain Meg Lanning (who are also the cover stars). The likes of James Anderson, Ellyse Perry, Sophie Ecclestone, Steve Smith, Ben Stokes and many, many more are also included with their likenesses.

Ashes Series and Big Bash League

Along with the signature Ashes series, for which this represents the 2021-22 iteration that begins in December, Cricket 22 also includes the Big Bash League (with both men’s and women’s matches playable in the same). Big Bash League is essentially Australia’s Twenty20 cricket league and features eight teams based on city franchises competing. So if you’ve ever wanted to recreate the rivalry between the Sydney Sixers and Perth Scorchers with all of the authentic players, then this is your chance.

Caribbean Premier League and The Hundred

New tournaments and leagues have also been added this year including the Caribbean Premier League and The Hundred. Established by Cricket West Indies, the former is a Twenty20 tournament with six franchises including the Barbados Royals, the Trinbago Knight Riders, the Jamaica Tallawahs and more. Then there’s The Hundred, an eight team tournament set in England and Wales which is focused on playing 100 balls per innings, thus providing a much faster, action-packed experience over the other formats.

Nets Challenge and Tutorials

In terms of improvements over previous titles, Cricket 22 also features overhauled tutorials which help first-time players to learn the ropes. There’s also the Nets Challenge, previously available as a pre-order bonus, which allows for testing one’s batting and bowling skills (along with competing for a spot on the leaderboard in a batting mini-game). It features difficulty settings for the AI, batting and bowling along with how realistic the physics should be. In terms of measuring one’s footwork, timing and shot choice, along with getting a feel for the overall controls, it’s worth jumping into for some practice.

Commentary Teams

It wouldn’t be cricket without the commentary and this year’s iteration has a pretty strong line-up. Along with former English cricketers Michael Atherton and David Gower, former Australian cricketers Mel Jones and Ian Healy are on board. Long-time commentator Alison Mitchell rounds out the roster, and for the first time in the franchise, an all-female commentary team is available for women’s matches. The developer notes that every shot will be called with “greater depth and analysis than ever before,” further adding to the immersion.

New Bowling and Fielding Controls

Among some of the new features in Cricket 22 are new bowling and fielding controls. The latter provides a “snap” when throwing the ball infield for a run-out but there’s a bit more going on with the bowling. Speaking to The Gamer, director of development Mike Merren talked about being able to place a mark on the pitch and aim for it while bowling. So if you’re not too keen on utilizing two sticks or are relatively new to the series, then this should make it easier to get into the game. Based on early Steam user reviews though, it seems that spinners don’t have their own unique actions, which takes a bit of authenticity out of the experience.

Ray Tracing and 4K/60 FPS on Xbox Series X

Big Ant Studios is touting this to be the best-looking Cricket ever (no, not the best-looking Cricket title but the best-looking Cricket). As debatable as that may be, Cricket 22 is listed on the Microsoft Store as running in 4K Ultra HD for Xbox Series X with support for +60 FPS and HDR10. Furthermore, it includes support for ray tracing and faster loading times. The PS5 version should support these as well, making for a pretty sizable graphical leap from Cricket 19.

Free Upgrades for Xbox One and PS4 Players

Cricket 22 is the first title in the series to release for Xbox Series X/S and PS5. The jury is still out on things like performance and fidelity over its predecessor but there’s good news for Xbox One and PS4 players. Even after purchasing the title on previous gen hardware, you can avail of free upgrades when shifting over to current gen consoles. Xbox’s Smart Delivery is also supported, which means that all progress, Achievements and save data should carry over between generations (and though this is Xbox only, we expect cross-gen save transfer for PlayStation to be available as well).

PC System Requirements

In terms of system requirements, Cricket 22 is a fair bit heftier than its predecessor. Minimum requirements include an Intel Core i3, AMD Ryzen 3 or higher, 8 GB of RAM and either an Nvidia GTX 650 Ti, AMD Radeon R7 260 or equivalent with 2 GB VRAM being the minimum. Recommended requirements include an Intel Core i5, AMD Ryzen 5 or higher, 16 GB of RAM and either an RTX 2060, Radeon RX 5500 XT or higher. In both cases, you’ll need Windows 10 64-bit or higher and 45 GB of total space to install the game.

Nacon, formerly known as Big Ben Interactive, is a French company looking to make a big splash in the mid-range side of game development. They’ve acquired a few studios, such as RPG makers Spiders, on top of publishing titles such as Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood and Vampire: The Masquerade – Swansong. It seems they also want to make a dent in the sports world, too.

As reported by GamesIndusty, Nacon is now set to acquire the Australian-based game developer Big Ant Studios for a deal worth €35 million in total. The developer has a long history, but in recent years has been known for their sports titles such as Cricket 19 and AO Tennis. As of now Big Ant Studios, have nothing officially announced for 2021.

Apparently, Nacon has said they made the move in hopes of becoming the leader in games based on tennis, rugby and cricket. There isn’t a lot of competition there, so it’s very much a goal they can achieve I imagine. It also shows the amount of growth the publisher has made since its rebranding.

You have four different serve and swing types, each mapped to the face buttons. This is straightforward enough, but elsewhere there are some odd control choices. Movement and shot placement are both mapped to the same stick. This makes it remarkably difficult to move in one direction and try to hit the ball in the opposite direction. You get used to it eventually, but it never really stops being annoying. There’s other issues on the court that hold the game back. While it is a marked improved visually compared to it’s predecessor, it still doesn’t look particularly good.

"Tennis World Tour 2 hasn’t quite learned the lessons of the game it seeks to emulate. The game’s overall approach is solid, but several small issues build up, and result in a game less than the sum of its parts."

Character models are odd looking, with facial animations being particularly bad. The models also have a strange sheen to them sometimes, which makes them look less like people and more like plastic models. The animations fare similarly. Some are decent, but a few of the animations look downright goofy. Characters look almost comical as they dash and sometimes skip across the court. Admittedly, it is an improvement over the previous game, where animation issues actually affected gameplay. That isn’t the case here, but they definitely affect immersion. A big draw of sports games is losing yourself in the illusion of playing the sport. That’s a lot harder to do when the people in the game look so awkward.

Still, the biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content. There’s just not a lot to do here. And what is here is fairly straightforward. There’s a career mode, where you take a custom player through a professional tennis career, and there’s an exhibition mode. This is just a straightforward custom match option, where you set up a doubles or singles game with players of your choosing. But there’s none of the other modes that are often the selling point for sports titles like this. The game feels severely lacking in terms of content.

This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if what the game does have was excellent, but it’s not. It’s not bad, not really. It’s just simplistic, and offers nothing that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. The career mode is fun enough, but it doesn’t really do much. You go from tournament to tournament, with the final goal of reaching the world championship. And that’s pretty much all there is to it. You can choose to skip an event to undergo training instead, but this is a passive experience. Unlike other sports games I’ve reviewed, like UFC 4, where your training actually requires you to, well, train, here you just get a pop-up telling you that certain skills have improved.

"The biggest issue with Tennis World Tour 2 is its brevity of content."

Aside from that, you can earn skill cards that can be used to provide yourself with boosts during a match, or to give hindrances to your opponents. But the problem is how you acquire them. You don’t purchase these cards directly. Instead, you buy packs of them that reward you with a random selection of cards. It makes you feel like you have remarkably little agency in actually determining your character’s playstyle. You don’t work towards anything. Instead, you just work towards abstract goals, like getting enough money to pay for a chance to get that skill boosting card that you want. This is the biggest problem with career mode.

Outside of the matches themselves, you just don’t actually do all that much. You don’t make rivals or friendships, you don’t train. You just watch a number go up that gives you a random chance of a card that makes other numbers go up. I never really felt like I was making progress. The game was progressing, sure, but I never really felt like a part of it. The tragic part is that the actual core gameplay of Tennis World Tour 2 is pretty decent. It doesn’t look great, and the controls can be wonky at first. But once you get the hang of it, play feels decently fluid. Doubles matches in particular can actually be a lot of fun.

And there’s a pretty wide selection of players, courts, and gear that you can experiment with. Different weather conditions can affect your performance in different ways. Honestly, exhibition mode is the most fun part of the game. It’s the only part of the game where you can really experiment, trying out different courts and gear and weather at your whim to see how things change. But even on the court, the fun doesn’t last too long. Different players don’t feel all that different from each other during play, and the cards didn’t really feel like they made all that much of a difference.

"Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game."

Half the time, I felt like I was watching a tennis match even as I was playing. Watching tennis can be a lot of fun, but it’s not the experience I want when I’m playing a tennis game. I want to feel like I’m playing.

I suppose die hard fans of the sport who really want a tennis game can have some fun here. The experience on the court is decent enough, and the wide roster of courts and players may excite those who are invested enough to appreciate it. But there just isn’t much here to hold your attention for long. And what is here is surface deep, feeling average at best and bland at worst. Tennis World Tour 2 is an improvement over its predecessor, but it still doesn’t stand out in any way. If you’re really set on a great game of virtual tennis, I’d suggest booting up an old copy of Top Spin instead. You’ll have more fun in the end.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

Not willing to back down from a challenge, Big Ant has decided to move ahead with the series despite its stumbles, resulting in this year’s simply-titled sequel AO Tennis 2. And while it seems eager to rectify some of the original game’s problems, there are a number of inconsistencies and game mechanics that bring down the enjoyment enough to make it difficult to recommend to anyone who isn’t willing to tough out the bad to get to the good.

What makes or break a tennis game, of course, is its very fundamentals. It’s here that AO Tennis 2 both succeeds and fails at different aspects, nailing the sense of momentum and split-second decision-making of the sport while simultaneously convoluting the control scheme to the point of frustration. This is due to the fact that both player movement and aiming your shots are mapped to the left stick. This results in the game using a bit of auto-movement to take some of the micromanagement out of positioning your player, but it doesn’t consistently feel great in action since there really isn’t a clear indication of when your player switches from manual to automatic movement.

The steep learning curve rears its head when you realize that the game requires you to get good positioning, aim the ball, and hold your shot button just long enough to get an accurate return ­– all within the span of about a second or two. On higher difficulties, this leaves rallies feeling needlessly cumbersome, resulting in a never-ending feeling of just clumsily getting by. It might feel a bit like the tension of a real tennis match, but it doesn’t translate to being very fluid for the person playing. All of the tedium can be alleviated by bumping the difficulty down to the lowest setting, almost completely removing the need to prime your shots, but doing so ultimately has the complete opposite effect of making the game feel too easy.

I found Amateur difficulty felt both relaxed enough to enjoy and challenging enough to keep me on my toes in the first couple of hours. But even though moving across the court with fairly generous windows for priming my shots felt more empowering, it still never managed to feel as fluid as it should because the game sometimes just decided not register my movements – a problem I weirdly also encountered in World Tour Tennis a few years back – resulting in my player just kind of standing there like an idiot. This happened frequently enough to dampen my experience, and in a game where every point counts, it’s a completely unacceptable problem.

Despite these irritations, I really like the game’s simplistic assignment of shot types to face buttons that make lining up that a ferocious forehand with beautiful top spin feel satisfying. The game’s solid AI will absolutely run you back and forth with hard hits to the opposite corner of the baseline if you let them, so mastering the different shots is a priority right away. Nailing a perfectly-timed slice to give you some time to reposition can mean the difference between winning and losing a game. It’s quite easy to abuse the AI on the lower difficulties though – a fact that will delight or disappoint you depending on your idea of fun. Before I bumped the difficulty up to the third tier, I commonly won points by just pushing up to the service line after my first return and powering a flat forehand to whichever back corner the AI wasn’t occupying.

I was excited to see some of my favorite players and top seeds like Rafael Nadal and Gael Monfils were playable, but it’s a rather jarring experience to see some high-ranking players and not others. The underwhelming total lineup of 25 real-life tennis pros is missing many extraordinary modern players like Roger Federer, Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic, or Maria Sharapova. As fun as it can be to hit the courts with some of these guys and gals, it’s a real bummer you’re not given the opportunity to pit them against their most exciting matchups.

However, thanks to the game’s incredible player creation tools, someone with enough time on their hands has all they need to design playable characters that look identical to real players. As a matter of fact, the online sharing feature allows you to easily download characters made by someone else, and it’s already stocked up with plenty of lookalikes for popular missing players like Andy Murray and Stan Wawrinka. This immense level of customization for created players is staggering, and it’s certainly nice to be able to revisit the tools at any time to change things up as you’d like.

And you may find that you want to do that from time to time considering that you’re likely to be spending a lot of time with AO Tennis 2’s Career Mode. This mode is a joy to play, offering a diverse collection of tasks to complete, matches to take on, and sponsors to earn. When you’re not showing up to press conferences or running training drills, you’ll be tackling tournaments to earn money that can help you improve your player’s various skills. Maybe you want to be known for your deadly backhand, or maybe you want the kind of serve that makes people nervous; pump your favorite skills full of points and prove yourself to the world.

AO Tennis 2 also features a barebones online mode for those looking to take on other tennis fans. Connection issues seemed abundant during my time playing, and people left mid-game regularly, but I managed to have a handful of pleasant matches with a few friendly people. Sadly, I couldn’t find any custom matches, and the Quick Match option results in precisely that: very quick matches. So, while hopping online for some rallies with real people is a nice diversion, it’s hardly the star of the show.

That’s okay, though, because there are plenty of other modes to delve into, and once you adapt to the game’s somewhat clunky control scheme and figure out the right difficulty for your skill level, AO Tennis 2 begins to evolve into a pretty fun time despite its flaws. It’s not an exceptional game, and the steep learning curve is not going to appeal to casual tennis fans, but it’s probably the best tennis title you’re going to find this generation. I just hope Big Ant Studios manage to finally get everything right with a third entry in this series they’re clearly so passionate about.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

NOTE: This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

"As we follow an iterative approach with our creation tools, there are always new options that we bring into the system, allowing players even greater control over every element of the characters and environments that they create."

What was behind the decision to make all the community created content from the previous game available in AO Tennis 2 as well?

We have a great deal of respect for the incredibly passionate AO Tennis community. They created – and shared – over 20,000 players, and 4,000 complete venues for others to download, and this meant the game itself had an incredible amount of added value, even for people not creating content. Allowing their content to live on in AO Tennis 2 is an acknowledgement of that community effort.

We also thought that it would be the ideal way to launch the game. From day one players have been able to access hundreds of hours’ worth of different content, and immediately customise their game to suit their tastes.

Does AO Tennis 2 make any improvements to its creation and editing tools?

Yes! As we follow an iterative approach with our creation tools, there are always new options that we bring into the system, allowing players even greater control over every element of the characters and environments that they create.

What are the biggest improvements that AO Tennis 2 has made to its career mode?

We really overhauled the career mode for AO Tennis 2. In the previous title, you would travel around the world playing matches and winning tournaments on the way to world #1. That is still the goal in AO Tennis 2, but now you need to be more mindful of your schedule, as fatigue and injuries play a role, and there are fully-animated cut scenes and press conferences to introduce a narrative element to the game. Add in the reputation system, and now it’s not just about getting to world #1, it’s about the journey and how you get there.

"We’ve introduced a number of key improvements to the presentation side of AO Tennis 2. There’s an all-new lighting system, which helps enhance the atmosphere of matches – playing at daytime, afternoon, or at night has a very different feel to it now."

Presentation is often considered one of sports games’ most important aspects- what sort of improvements does AO Tennis 2 make in this area?

We’ve introduced a number of key improvements to the presentation side of AO Tennis 2. There’s an all-new lighting system, which helps enhance the atmosphere of matches – playing at daytime, afternoon, or at night has a very different feel to it now.

We’ve also significantly increased the amount of animation in the game, and introduced new technologies that make players’ clothing move in a more natural manner. The combined effect is a much more authentic game of tennis on your screen.

Was there any particular feedback from the community with the first game that you worked to improve upon with AO Tennis 2?

The community was great in giving us feedback in all areas. From helping us to understand how they were playing the game, through to the features they would like to see in the game, there isn’t much in AO Tennis 2 that wasn’t enhanced thanks to community feedback.

Can you talk about the new Scenario Editor and what it entails?

After introducing a scenario editor in Cricket 19, to a great community response, we did much the same thing with AO Tennis 2. You’re able to set up a match between two players at any point in the match, and then take over that match to see if you can recreate (or change) history. If you’ve got a favourite come from behind win, you’ll be able to replay that match and challenge yourself under the same circumstances.

"We’re still collecting feedback from players from the launch of the game now, so we’ve got nothing that we can confirm regarding plans for patches just yet. We do firmly believe in supporting our games at Big Ant, and AO Tennis 2 will be no different in that regard."

What are your plans for AO Tennis 2 in the coming months, as far as updates and post-launch support are concerned?

We’re still collecting feedback from players from the launch of the game now, so we’ve got nothing that we can confirm regarding plans for patches just yet. We do firmly believe in supporting our games at Big Ant, and AO Tennis 2 will be no different in that regard.

Is there anything else you want to tell us about the game?

Just that we hope people love it! It’s no secret that AO Tennis wasn’t all it should have been at launch, and despite numerous updates and improvements, the whole team at Big Ant really felt like we had something to prove with AO Tennis 2. We’ve been truly thrilled to see the positive result that the game has had from the community so far.

SIE Lodon Studio’s latest major PlayStation VR release, first person shooter Blood and Truth, has topped the UKIE/Gfk Chart-Track weekly charts for video game boxed sales in the UK for the week ending June 1 (via GamesIndustry). In doing so, it has become the first ever VR game to top the UK charts.

FIFA 19, however, almost beat it to the punch, trailing behind in second place with a gap of just 400 copies. Meanwhile, Team Sonic Racing, which debuted on top of the sales charts last week, has seen a 46 per cent drop and fallen to third place, but still continues to sell well, and continues to outpace its predecessors.

RAGE 2, which topped the charts a couple weeks ago, and fell down to fourth place last week, has completely fallen out of the top 10 this week. Big Ant Studio’s Cricket 19 is another new debutant in the top 10, occupying sixth place. Days Gone is in fourth place, while Red Dead Redemption 2 occupies fifth place.

You can check out the full top 10 below.

1. Blood and Truth
2. FIFA 19
3. Team Sonic Racing
4. Days Gone
5. Red Dead Redemption 2
6. Cricket 19
7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
8. Grand Theft Auto 5
9. Forza Horizon 4
10. Mortal Kombat 11