0 to Z of Playstation 1 Games - Break Point
The Sega Saturn
release of the game again came first in Europe sometime in 1996, the only North
American release of the game was on the Sega Saturn, coming on the 21st of November 1996.
The Japanese release on the Saturn was the following year on June 27th 1997.
Notable people who
worked on the game, Dave Thompson who programmed the game also worked as a Programmer on All
Star Tennis 1999 before moving away from the programming side of the industry
and in the Production side of it.
Thompson also worked
as a Producer on All Star Tennis 99, and its follow up All Star Tennis 2000. He
was the executive Producer on the Big Mutha Truckers games as well as Cartoon
Network Racing and Hot Wheels Beat That. His most recent credit is one that he
likely wants to pretend never happened with Thompson being the producer on the
god awful Ride to Hell Retribution which released in 2013.
Tony Williams who worked on the games Music had a long career in the
video game industry and the music side of game development. His career dates
all the way back to 1986 with his first credit being for Wibstars. Williams
also worked on the music for Milk Race, Colony, Rescue, Shinobi, The Ninja Warriors,
Jimmy Connors Pro Tennis Tour, Chuckie Egg and Canyon Warrior just in the 80s
alone.
In the 90 Williams
worked on the likes of NARC, Judge Dredd, Lemmings, Smash T.V. Overkill,
Creepers Beneath a Steel Sky and of course Break Point. Since the release of
this game in 1996 Williams worked on Perfect Assassin in 1997 and Pocket Soccer
in 2001. In 2006 he was the game designer for Fruit Fall, and followed up the
next year with Super Fruitfall.
Break Point or also known as Break Point Tennis
is a tennis sports game for between 1 or 2 players and up to 4 players with a
multi tap, unlike several other tennis games that appeared on the original
Playstation this game is not a licensed game, so no real players, courts or
tournaments are available.
When it comes to tennis players, instead the
player has the choice of eight generic tennis players to choose from, the
developers have tried to flesh them out a bit giving them a name, age,
nationality, ranking and a short description about them.
For example Kate Young is an 18 year old
British tennis player with a good ranking, it doesn’t’ actually give a world
ranking number. And her short description reads, a young player with a decent
combination of speed, power and agility, has the ability to be the best one
day.
Another tennis player on offer is Eric Svenson
a 22 year old Swede who also has a good ranking, Erik is a player who has
matured into a fine player, who now has the confidence to be a world champion,
according to the description on his profile page.
The game features five different modes of play
to choose from, the first is a singles mode, this mode has the player selecting
two of the available eight player, then selecting the desired court you want to
play on. When playing the game takes the usual camera angle for tennis games
above the bottom player looking up the court the camera angle can be changed by
hitting the L1+R1 shoulder buttons.
Controlling your tennis player is done with the
D-Pad, left and right moving them across the court, pressing up will move your
player closer to the next while pressing down moves them back towards to
baseline. This is of course reversed in player with another human player who is
playing on the top half of the court.
Players have the choice of four shot types, a
normal shot is done with the X button, this button is also used to do a normal
serve. Players can play shots that either add backspin or top spin, the former
is done with the Square button, while a top spin shot is done with the circle
button.
Players can also perform a lob shot, this is
done with the Triangle button, this button is also used to perform an auto
serve, this is used if you are struggling with your timing on a normal serve,
with the player required to his the X button at the right time in the ball
descent.
When playing the games UI is very minimal, with
only the current came score displayed at the bottom left of the screen. Once a
point has been played the overall score for the match will appear on the screen
before the next game begins. The game features voiced scoring along with the
judge calling the players by their names, the game also features line judges
and ball boys as well.
The game features all four tennis surfaces for
you to compete on with Grass, Clay, Asphalt and indoor surfaces all
represented. In addition to the singles mode the game also features a doubles
mode, a super cup mode and the main meat of the game a tournament mode, this
last mode has four different tournaments for the player to choose from.
These
include the L.T.S Tour, the Quartex Tour, the Estelle Tour and the Milovich
Tour. The game also features a practice mode for you to test out your tennis
skills before taking on an opponent, the game sadly does not feature analogue
controller support.
This being an early release in the Playstations
lifecycle the number of critic reviews for the game are limited with just three
reviews available, these ranging from good down to average. As usual we will
start with the best of them which comes from French publication Joypad.
Joypad who rated the game at a good 84, with
the reviewer finding the ecstasy of video game tennis is not for today, with
Break Point Tennis not being the best in the future. The reviewer continued by
saying. And yet this title from Ocean has assets, the animation of the players
for example, is a rare realism and their possibilities in terms of shots are
many.
CyberGames are next up with a decent 70 rated
reviewer for the game, with the reviewer finding that once you look past all of
the many oddities present, you have a game that plays rather well and can be a
lot of fun. The reviewer continued by saying. Even if you are not a tennis fan,
you may want to give this game a chance. (CyberGames renamed itself to DVD-Spin Games)
The final review comes from Dutch publication
Power Unlimited who rated the game at an average 56. This being a magazine
publication and a reviewer from all the way back in January of 1997, finding
much about the review is impossible to find.
All that remains the review blurb with
translates as follows, Shit, that's where my tennis spirit goes. Break Point
Tennis certainly does not make a difference in the bag to make this dope sport
even more popular. On the contrary! Get rid of it!
This is the part of 0
to Z where is visit four online retailers and see what the availability of the
title is, and what price you would be looking at if you wanted to pick this
title up, the sites that I will be using for this are Amazon.com,
eStarland.com, retrogames.co.uk and Gamedude.com I know the last one is very
location specific, but from a podcast I listen to, I’ve heard they have a huge
stock of older games, Ebay has now been dropped unless the game is unavailable
at other retailers.
So lets get down to
business with Gamedude, where unsurprisingly we don’t find this game listed, as
the Playstation release of this game never came to the United States. So we
will quickly move on to Retrogames.co.uk, here as well we sadly don’t find the
game available or even listed.
Out next hope is
eStarland.com, but this being a US based site we again don’t find the Playstation
version available. We do however find the Sega Saturn version of the game
listed under the name of Break Point Tennis.
At eStarland we find
two copies currently on the market, the first is a disc only copy of the game,
this will set you back $6.25, The second copy that is currently available from
eStarland is missing the box, this copy is priced at $9.38.
Also on offer at
eStarland is a trade in for this Sega Saturn version of the game, with a
complete used copy of the game worth up to $5.50. This price will fluctuate
depending on the completeness of your copy, with a disc only copy worth just
$1.82 at trade in.
Next up is Amazon.com
where we again fail to find the Playstation version of the game available, we
do however find again the Sega Saturn version, with a handful of copies
currently on offer. All used copies that are currently on the market are disc
only or incomplete copies, there is a new copy of the game available this is
priced up at $43.98.
With no copies
available at Amazon.com we next head to the co.uk version of the site where we
finally do find the game, we also find the Saturn version and the Japanese
Playstation version of the game as well. The Pal version of the game has a
modest supply available, the game however is pretty cheap for a compete copy
with it price at £2.10 and comes with free deliver for a good condition copy of
the game.
If you are looking
for a better condition and complete copy of the game a couple of very good
condition copies can be picked up for £4.27 and £4.53. In addition one like new
copy of the game is available, this coy will however cost you significantly
more, priced at £22.31, this copy has been professionally cleaned and comes
with free shipping.
The Sega Saturn
version of the game, again this is the Pal release of the game, we find two
copies currently on the market, both of these copies are complete and come in
good or very good condition. The first copy, the good condition copy can be
picked up for £17.99, while the second copy, the very good condition copy is
priced at £29.99, both come with free shipping.
Lastly we have the
Japanese version of the Playstation release, here you can get a good or very
good condition used copy for either £4.71 or £4.72. A new copy of the Japanese
version can also be picked up for as little as £8.37, a second new copy is
available for £8.39 as well.
Written by
P J Gibbon
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