hen I was at school there was always a certain amount of paranoia surrounding a certain act. Apparently, someone a couple of years older than us had indulged himself in the act so much, that one arm was now more muscular than the other. While I doubt, and doubted, the story’s validity, it is an image that has stuck with me. The image of a greasy haired teenager, with one arm bigger than the other, is surely one of mere juvenile fiction. Rafa Nadal Tennis is a peculiar affair. On one hand it is that most traditional of handheld games, tennis; its simplistic, quick-paced nature has always lent itself to the short bursts of a car journey or bus route. On the other, slightly larger hand, the fully 3D graphics, and Virtua Tennis aping gameplay are really pushing the DS to its limits. Graphically the game looks a little rough and grainy, but features some nice animations, and deserves credit for what it’s trying to do. Rafa Nadal Tennis’ problems, sadly, run much deeper than its graphical limitations. The initial control setup is to use the stylus to ‘draw’ the angle of your shot. With the serve this works brilliantly, letting you ark and swing the ball in or out of the court. Unfortunately you are also expected to move your player using the stylus, and moving into position and hitting a ball is a physical impossibility. While it has to be said that once you start using the D-pad things improve massively, there are still glitches that frustrate and cost points. Your player will, if changing direction, not register that you’ve pressed to play the ball, drop shots are far too difficult to pull off, and will either hit the net (even from right on the net) or float out of play. The net itself also causes problems, it’s far too rigid, stopping balls that should still make it over to the other side. When the ball does come over you’ll either be incapable of recovering in time, or hammer a simple head-height ball out of the stadium. The decisions to not allow gameplay across both screen is a shame. One screen isn’t quite big enough to house the action, and the ball can too easily get lost once it goes over head height, where thanks to the grainy graphics, not even following the shadow is a reliable method for tracking. It really is a shame that the glitches take away so much enjoyment from Rafa Nadal Tennis, as, even after only a handful of goes, it becomes apparent just how close the developers have come to matching Virtua Tennis’ control refinement. It’s also a shame the game doesn’t have a proper ‘Arcade mode’, although the standard one off game does allow a full match, and the Career mode is reasonably substantial. With a bit more time and care Rafa Nadal could have been an essential tennis game, offering a console standard recreation on the diminutive DS. As it stands it’s a game that only warrants a purchase if you’re desperate for some tennis action and haven’t noticed the DS’ GBA slot, or Prince of Tennis’ release in the East. Ben Williams