Put your hands together ladies and gentlemen, it's another French game. This time it's awful beyond your wildest nightmares. Thankfully it isn't following the recent trend of French games, which is to have a completely ridiculous story line.

I was half expecting this to be a spy thriller shoot-'em-up strategy game where your tennis opponent was actually the evil Phlegm who is about to destroy the world with his deadly Atom Tennis Ball.
OK, let's look at the game in our usual objective style. For starters it's a tennis game which more or less condemns it instantly but being the least playable game I've come across to date kills it completely.

You play in one or two-player mode. I played on the one-player mode because no-one else would take part in this feast of fun with me. The view of the court is form a high perspective behind your player so you are actually getting a frontal view of the opposition.

Where this game fails is the gameplay - there isn't any. It wouldn't be so bad if the game was actually hard to play, but all you need to use is the Fire button.

If you don't move your player when the opposition serves or returns a shot the computer will automatically put you in the right position. You are actually free to move, but why bother? If you move around, you're bound to miss the ball.
This lack of movement means the game has less playability than the old console tennis games - at least there you had to chase the ball.

As ever, the computer opponent is far too good - I gave up rather rapidly after losing every match 6-0. Occasionally he might hit the net but after a while he just wears you down.

Graphically the game is up to quite a good standard. The players move quite smoothly and various sequences leading into the game are quite well done.

The most amusing bit of the game is the opening sequence where both of the players walk on and are clapped by the crowd. As the players appear, the crowd goes into convulsions. Instead of the usual naff clapping and jumping they seem to vibrate left to right with alarming speed.

Next on the giggle list is the soundtrack. When either opponent scores a point, the umpire announces the score - 15/40 and so on - but remember it's a French game, so it's done with a really dodgy accent. Every time I hear it I get this image of the umpire sitting there with a string of onions around his neck and a beret on.

It has a demo mode which lets you view a game between famous tennis stars which funnily enough look identical to your character. Like any demo on any game, it's only appearing the first time around, if that.

What can I say? It's awful. I can't even see hardcore tennis game fans, if such a thing exists, enjoying this or more than a couple of goes.

Far be it from the French to take defeat in one of their beloved sports lying down. Their great tennis hero Henri Leconte may once again have missed out in the major tournaments, but that does not stop them hitting back with Tennis Cup 2.

TC2 (as its best friends get to call it) throws you straight into the atmosphere of the professional tennis circuit. You are represented by an animated tennis player who arrives at the tennis club armed with kitbag and rackets. It is very modern, very up market - you can almost smell it. Graphically it is top-notch, and throughout gameplay, animation is just as good. Consequently my first impressions were good.

After your player has signed in at the reception desk, which also doubles up as the bar for refreshments, you have a number of choices. These options have been ingeniously drawn into the tennis club entrance hall - it is well laid-out and realistic. On the main screen above you is the announcement of your match. To go straight into the match just walk your player through the doors and onto the court.

Alternatively you can choose to watch a demo on the wall-mounted screen, or check out the opposite side of the tennis club foyer where you will find the entrance doors to the training section. By walking your player through these doors you can choose to train with either a ball thrower or with a teacher.

In terms of content then, it seems that the game could not offer much more, but what about its mechanics, the essentials that make or break a good sports simulation? Your first introduction to the control system if yu are wise, is the practise option. Tennis 2's control system is the same as Pro Tennis Tour - press the fire button to prepare a shot, then release it to hit the ball - but somehow, it is easier to get to grips with. The ball will be sent in a direction corresponding to that of the joystick. It sounds simple, but as any tennis player knows it is all in the timing... Certainly you will have to spend a lot of time in training before the control system can be mastered for a match.

Once you have got the hang of play control, there is a chance to learn specific shots with an on screen animated teacher. The training system is comprehensive, but then it needs to be.

If you feel confident enough to go out and do battle on the court, the menu screen offers a wide variety of options for your game. Choose, for instance, the number of sets (one, three or five), the game speed (slow, medium, fast) and the court type (clay, quick, hard or grass). With a two player option you can play singles or doubles and go on to play international tournaments - eight are offered, plus four David Cups and the Masters.

So there is certainly a lot of scope, and once on court you will find this a fairly realistic tennis simulation right down to line calls and authentic match sound effects. Where it does lose out is in the length of time it takes to redraw and load again between points. This is frustrating and silly, and really gets in the way of the smoothness and fluidity of the gameplay.

Tennis - probably the most boring game in the world. Who in their right mind would want to watch two wallies whacking a ball around with flyswatters in front of a crowd of posh morons eating strawberries and cream?

At the start of Tennis Cup 2, your player doesn't seem all that keen to play either - he's having a drink in the bar, waiting for you to make your move.

You have two choices as to what to do with him. Walk him to the side door and you enter training mode, whereupon you're greeted by machines which hurl tennis balls at your forehead while you wave your racket around. Alternatively you can walk through the main door onto the court and hear the crowd erupt in applause.

The presentation's good, but what about the gameplay? Well, it's Hard with a capital H. It can get sooo frustrating. That's the problem with Tennis Cup 2 - the difficulty level has been set at Wimbledon Champion standard. I played for three hours solid and didn't win a single game.

It's very addictive at first, but play for a while and it can become really infuriating, crossing the thin line between addictiveness and frustration. Not even John MacEnroe can beat this, because this time the ball is definitely out!