Tennis in the Face

I'll be straight with you: if you walk into Tennis in the Face expecting anything with a racket and a net, you're going to be confused for about thirty seconds and then probably charmed. This is a physics-based puzzle game in the Angry Birds mould, built around a wonderfully absurd setup where washed-up tennis pro Pete Pagassi takes on the evil Explodz energy drink corporation by pelting clowns, riot police, hazmat scientists, and smug-looking hipsters in the face with tennis balls. The "sports" angle is really just a delivery mechanism for some genuinely satisfying projectile chaos. The core loop is simple and it works. You aim Pete's serve using the mouse (or a controller stick, both feel fine), an aiming line shows your trajectory, and you click to fire. The ball bounces off walls, sets off chain reactions, knocks over environmental hazards like explosive Explodz crates and teetering wooden planks, and ideally clears the screen in as few shots as possible. Each of the 100-plus levels fits on a single screen, which keeps things tight and readable. Enemy variety adds some light puzzle thinking: standard clowns go down in one hit, riot cops have shields that deflect direct shots so you need to aim for the back of the head, hazmat suits require two hits, and businessmen drop briefcases you can smash for bonus points. Later levels lean harder into the puzzle side, asking you to smash glass panels to release objects that trigger other objects in a satisfying chain. The big question for the crowd I usually write for: is there any multiplayer, co-op, local or otherwise? No. This is a solo-only affair with zero competitive or couch modes. If you were hoping to set up a Saturday night tournament around it, look elsewhere. It is genuinely a one-person experience, and a short one at that. Critics across the board pegged it at a few hours for a full run, with a crown-rating system per level offering some replay hook for completionists. The bonus challenge areas mix things up slightly, throwing coin-collection variants and extra level packs at you, but they do not fundamentally change the formula. The music situation is also worth flagging: reviewers consistently called out a very limited soundtrack, basically a repeating guitar riff, which can grate during longer sittings. Where it lands well on PC specifically is accessibility. The mouse controls are genuinely more precise than the console stick versions, and the aiming line takes any intimidation factor off the table for less experienced players. Picking it up, handing the mouse over to someone who has never touched a puzzle game, and watching them clear a level on their first attempt because a lucky ricochet wiped out five clowns at once - that moment delivers every time. The slow-motion level finale is a small touch that punches above its weight in terms of feel-good feedback. The cartoon art style is bright, readable, and holds up fine at any resolution without needing any hardware muscle at all. The honest ceiling here is that Tennis in the Face is a polished mobile game that made a reasonable jump to PC. It knows what it is and does not overstay its welcome when you play it in the short bursts it was designed for. Push it into a two-hour session and repetition sets in fast. Treat it as a fifteen-minute wind-down game and it lands exactly right.

Riley · Scout Team

Sports & racing

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