Tennis

Tennis is another of the NES Black Box launch titles and one of the simplest games on the system: one court, four players, four rackets. The singles and doubles modes both come down to the same two buttons.

What gives it depth is the roster. The four characters have visibly different running speeds and reach, so doubles with two controllers becomes a genuine pairing choice rather than a cosmetic one - a fast player covering the net with a slow one at the baseline covers the court in a way that two identical players do not. The scoring follows real tennis, the ball physics are honest, and the rallies can run long. It is the sort of game that gets dismissed as a throwaway and then quietly becomes the one people still play.

• ▸Four characters with different speed and reach
• ▸Singles and two-controller doubles with pairing that matters
• ▸Real tennis scoring with deuce and advantage
• ▸Simple two-button control - swing and lob