Didn’t get enough from Golf on the Game Boy?! Then you’d better get Tennis on the Game Boy! Yes! This majigger launched in 1989 like a thing out of nowhere.

No tennis grunting noises with this one, though, because the Game Boy generally didn’t do such advanced sound effects. Well, huzzah to that!

Tennis on the Game Boy

Tennis began life in 1983 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. It was developed by Nintendo EAD and Intelligent Systems.

There was also an arcade version, which became a hit in 1984. Here’s a sample of the high octane action you got to enjoy.

Naturally, with the success of the Game Boy in the late ’80s, Nintendo decided to shift the game over to its handheld.

It got an overhaul with chunkier graphics, which still look pretty nifty to this day.

And the idea was for players to whack a ball over the net, whilst revelling in the joys of monochrome. Check it out!

Tennis on the Game Boy is quite limited in its available gameplay options. There are only a few difficulty levels and opponents to wipe the floor with.

Yet, for the time, this was pretty advanced stuff and an addictive little game.

Along with bouts of Tetris and Link’s Awakening, we remember spending a fair bit of time on this SOB.

And that’s largely down to its accessibility and pick-up-and-play qualities. Not much else to add, then. Good fun! But nothing groundbreaking.

Oh yeah, and Mario is the umpire. Just in case you forget. On brand. Love it.

Mario Tennis on the Virtual Boy

Just as another curiosity, the tennis concept also made it onto Nintendo’s disastrous Virtual Boy in 1995.

It’s actually one of the best received games on the virtual reality thing, which is quite the achievement. Other than Virtual Boy Wario Land, the system didn’t deliver much in quality.

As with most games on the system, the problem is 99.9% of gamers have never played the thing. The system didn’t shift a million units before being canned.

So tennis in blood red didn’t catch on in, perhaps, the way Nintendo wanted.