Video Games: Anyone for tennis?: First there was Pong. And now comes tennis with . . . a round ball. Rupert Goodwins takes Pete Sampras to five sets

Pete Sampras Tennis

(Sega Megadrive)

Tennis and video games are traditional partners. Pong, the first ever arcade game, was swallowing quarters while Sampras was still in short trousers: he still is, but the video game is barely recognisable. Instead of two rectangular bats pick-pocking a square ball across a grainy black background we have a striped grass court, mannequins chasing after long shots and, mirabile dictu, a round ball.

First, master the basics - if you can't get to the right bit of the court at the same time as the ball, all the subtleties of racquet control will be as useful as a raincover in the Gobi desert. My real-life experience of tennis always stopped at this point; despite memories of watching the ball trickle coquettishly over the line, I'm glad to say I did better with Pete Sampras than I ever managed with the Joan Hunter-Dunns of my youth.

Thus emboldened, the mysteries of lob, aftertouch and dive were open to exploration. Three basic shots are possible, corresponding to the three buttons on the Sega's control pad - normal, lob and dive. The diving, though spectacular, is rarely effective. Better to get there early; if you do, then you can change power and direction by dabbing at the direction buttons after starting the shot. You can get quite skilful at this; even I, with fingers as delicate as John McEnroe's vocabulary, got into the swing.

They also serve who only stand and wait? Not in this game, where any delay in bashing the serve button prompts an irate spectator to yell 'Come on]' in frustation. A mannered commentator announces the scores in perfect deadpan; even the crowd noises are polite.

Variations keep things sweet - choice of courts, players, special shots and up to four players on court at once. Codemasters has put two extra joystick sockets into the game cartridge itself, so if your pals have their own controllers you don't need to buy any extra hardware before hunkering down for mixed doubles. For around the price of 300 Wimbledon strawberries, will fill in those annoying gaps between real-life games.

Pac-Attack (Nintendo)

Pac-Man was one of the classic games that wheedled their way into the consciousness of the western world. The little yellow ball chomping its way through a mazeful of power pills, ghosts and fruit was etched on the retinas of a generation. Pac-Man was, in short, as fine a way to waste time as youth could hope for, and its arrival on the Super Nintendo was gleefully awaited by the nostalgic.

Pac-Attack is not that game, and the disappointment can be heard across the land. Instead, it's a reworking of yet another classic game, Tetris, which involves putting together a jigsaw from tumbling shapes. I've nothing against Tetris, but when it's being sold in the same breath as Pac-Man one is entitled to feel a tad cheated.

The Pacish elements are few: some graffiti backdrops and the occasional ghost in the falling blocks. These get trapped as the blocks build up, and every so often an unconvincing Pac-Man drops down and nibbles its way through the captive spirits, freeing more space for more blocks. There are two-player and puzzle modes, but nothing that sets the heart pounding.

Pac-Attack would make a fine bonus game on the same cartridge as a version of the real thing. As it is, it's a waste of 40 quid; true Pac fanatics should seek out the Pac-Man that Nintendo has inexplicably chosen to release only on its original Entertainment System.

(Photograph omitted)