Download Great Courts

The game Great Courts 1 was one of the first tennis games made for PC. It was created in the year 1989 by the company named Ubi Soft. This game was at first made for Amiga, but after its incredible success it was released for the PC too. Like the name suggests, this is a game about the tennis tournament world, where you can play the four Grand Slam tournaments: Australia open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and US open.

There are three different control methods to choose from: mouse, keyboard, or joystick. I prefer keyboard, because it is easier to control your actions then with the mouse or joystick. When using the keyboard, you have a few extra seconds for sending the ball to the desired part of the field. The next step is to choose the way you will play. It could be tournament, or practice. When playing the tournaments, you can actually see how your player improves. Each time you win the game, your raking will increase, so you can slowly become a respectable player in the tennis world.

You begin the Grand Slam tournament playing in the Australian open. Schedule of the tournament in the game is the same as in the real world. As you can see in the screenshots, this first court is slow, so it will be easy to return balls. After that you will play Roland Garros, and conditions on the court are almost the same. The third tournament is Wimbledon on grass court, which is faster, and therefore more difficult to play. You should be more concentrated. If you will be not fast enough you will never be able to return ball. In the US open the field is the pretty the same as in Wimbledon.

Regardless of the fact that Great Courts 1 are 17 years old at the moment of writing, the graphics are surprisingly good with many details, such as the crowd around the court supporting you or your opponent. Another positive thing that can be said about Great Courts 1 is that it supports hotseat mode so you can invite your friend to play against you.

When it comes to compatibility, this game delivers as well since it runs fine in XP, DOS, and DOSBox. Because of its graphics and playability I give it 4 stars.