Virtua Tennis
Reviewed by Dale Kulas
The Game
Virtua Tennis first debuted in the arcades, and obviously
the game says 'Sega Sports Arcade' on the case so you know
it did come from the arcade. Any ways this game plays just
like a sim, but moves at the pace of an arcade title, will
it appeal to all gamers of the great Sega Sports series, and
live up to the standards of NBA, NFL, & NHL 2K? Well, lets
get onto the review and find out?
Graphics
You gotta admit these are some really great visuals. The
game was designed off the Naomi Arcade software, so that
means a true arcade perfect translation on the Dreamcast.
The tennis court looks just like the real thing, and it has
all the umpire there, and the people who run to get the
balls and an audience. The players look just as real, all
are designed picture perfect, down to every little detail,
the close ups of them after every turn look amazing on how
real their faces look. They look so close to real life
players. The instant replays are another thing to marvel
over in this game. They usually show them after the winning
shot of each game or of some great overhead smash. The game
has two camera angles, far out, and in close, where the in
close camera angles features way more visual detail on the
players and court. Another neat thing is if you look on your
VMU while playing, you'll see a scaled down, stick figure
tennis game that's going on the exact same way you're doing,
so if you squint really hard, you'll be able to play the
game off your VMU! You got some great animation in here too
of the players, like this is the first tennis game (I think)
that I saw players diving for balls out of their range.
Any ways, like I mentioned before, the game has some really
nice zoom outs after each shot, but they only last a couple
of seconds each, and right after each ball of play ends, you
automatically go to that 2 second zoom out, then to the
serve of the next shot. That's why the game moves so
quickly. Like it only took me 3 and a half minutes to go
against the computer in doubles in 3 games. If there's
anything to nick pick at, that'll be that sometimes when you
or the computer lob the ball (hit it high in the air)
occasionally the ball would go off screen, and you'd have to
track it's tiny shadow to determine where to hit it, this
happens in both in-close and far-out camera angles, but it
doesn't happen too often, like once or twice every game or
two. And the crowd looks great too, but sometimes on the
closeups after each shots, you see these great 3D rendered
models of the audience, and at other times, some not so
great animated sprites. But that's the only bad part about
the graphics, so overall a job really well done like in all
the other 2K games.
Sound
All the sound effects are sound just like the real thing,
like racket smashes, and the 'ugh' a player lets out when
they hit the ball and the buzzer you get when you serve a
fault. You also got the announcer doing just a little bit of
play-by-play like announcing the score after each shot, and
when games are won, and who's serving, but that's about it.
An television announcer would've been great like the one's
in NFL & NBA 2K, but oh, well, the announcer himself (and he
talks in different languages too, depending on what part of
the world you're playing it, like Russian if you're in
Russia, etc.) sounds pretty good. The music in here is
another thing well done, the opening track sounds like
something you'll here if ESPN is doing a tennis special, and
you can test all music samples in the options too. There's
this one track, 'Unyielding Spirit' which reminds me a lot
of the victory road track in F-Zero X for N64. Overall a
really bang up job in the sound department too.
Game play
Alright, the controls for playing this game is really easy.
The Y button changes the camera angle, the X button lobs and
serves, and the A and B button serves and gives regular
shots/overhead smashes (the type of shot you hit varies on
where the ball is when you hit the button). You can move
with the control pad or stick, usually I prefer the stick
for free, 3D movement, but for some odd reason I prefer the
control pad more. You can set the rules of tennis in here
too, like how many games need to be won, weather or not to
have the Deuce rule on (Deuce is where the players are tied
at 40-40, and who ever makes two consecutive shots first,
wins the game, oh yeah, scoring for tennis games go: love,
15, 30, 40, game) and adjust the computer difficulty level.
There are a few ways to play here, first of all there's
arcade, which is basically the arcade port of the game,
where you pick a player, weather or not to play singles or
doubles, and jump on into a 6-game match with default rules
that you can't adjust. In exhibition mode, there's a lot
more to customize, besides the mentioned above you get to
adjust in arcade mode, you also get to adjust the game
count, have deuce rule on or off, computer strength, and
pick the arena you want to play in. Finally there's World
Circuit mode, where you tour around the world, ranked last,
and win 'Experience money' by completing games and training
exercises. You use the money to buy power drinks, new tennis
racket strings, and like in a weird Marvel vs. Capcom 2 kind
of way, buy secret characters, partners for doubles, arenas
to play in, and different outfits to play in. These bought
off outfits, characters, and arenas can also be used in
exhibition and arcade modes. You have to beat all your
opponents in 'level 1' difficulty first, where all your
opponents and exercises are rather easy, then move up to
'level 2' where things get to be really hard. I don't want
to give too much away in this mode, so you can figure the
rest up to yourself by playing the game.
Oh yeah, I forgot to describe the training exercises, if you
ever played Crazy Taxi (which was developed by the same team
who made this game), there was the 'Crazy Box' which
featured some mini games like bowling, and time attacks,
etc. That's what these exercises are like too, there's
actually a five frame bowling set where you got to score 50
in level 1, 80 in level 2, etc. Plus there's also other
wacky exercises like a bulls-eye challenge, and hitting huge
beach balls out of the tennis court. There's 8 exercises in
total, all have several levels of difficulty also. For some
complaints about this game, I really wish there was an
option to play more than just one set of tennis, considering
how fast each game goes, also there isn't any real player
license here, so all the real pros like Pete Sampras, and
Andre Aggasiz aren't here. But these are just two little
flaws, that are easily forgivable, and will most likely be
in next years version of the game (which is already confirmed
to be in development by both the developers and Sega).
Replay Value
This game is really a blast to play in multi player, weather
it be just 2 players in singles, or 2 to 4 players or
doubles, you're gonna be playing this game forever either
way. I had my friend try this game, and I know he's really
not a big fan of tennis, but once he started connecting with
shots and all, he really got into the game and couldn't stop
playing it. Also the World Circuit Mode is a blast to keep
on playing at to unlock players, outfits, and arenas, and
all those training exercises make the game even more fun to
play. Also the game supports a lot of the Dreamcast
peripherals like the Jump Pack, The Arcade Stick, and the
VGA Cord so your computer monitor can act as a television.
So there's a lot of depth for playing this game for a while.
In Brief
+: World Circuit mode's a very innovative feature, Flawless
Arcade translation, Great multi player game!
-: Sometimes hard to judge where balls will land when they
go off screen, can't play more than 1 full set, no official
players license
The Final Ratings Rundown
Graphics: 9. 6
Sound: 8. 7
Game play: 9. 2
Replay Value: 9. 1
Overall: 9.1 out of 10
Final Analysis
I first tried this game on the Official Dreamcast mag demo,
and in minutes I was hooked, I thought since it was just a
tennis game there will be many copies of this game out
everywhere, but I was wrong, every place I checked (Software
Etc., Target, Wal-Mart, KB Toys) they were all sold out, so
for the first time I had to order a game I really wanted off
the 'net. Also for just $39. 99, about $10 cheaper than the
average new Dreamcast title, this games a steal. So weather
or not you're a big tennis fan, you should get this game
because of it's easy-to-learn, but tough-to-master, game
play, and the serious fun you'll have playing it. It's a
definitely another great Sega Sports title, and I can't wait
for the sequel!
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