Virtua Tennis
Reviewed by Inkhands
If you look closely at the games I have reviewed you might
notice that this is only the second Dreamcast game I have
written about. The reason for that is, I just bought my
Dreamcast under a month ago and at this time two games is
all I own. Actually, those two games are the only ones I had
any desire to purchase. I heard about this game, I did a
little research on it, and it looked impressive. I love
tennis, so I decided to make Virtua Tennis my choice as the
second game to buy. If you look again at the reviews I have
done you might notice I have already reviewed about 10
tennis games. Also, I have never given a tennis game a 10,
until now. It's the best tennis game I have ever played. It
does have some flaws, just like every other game, but the
very few imperfections that can be found do not detract much
from an overall high quality tennis game.
There are three modes in this game. Exhibition Mode allows
you to set up the game however you wish to play. You choose
the players, the courts, and the rules. Initially you may
only choose to play as one of eight players on one of five
courts, however as you advance through the World Circuit
Mode you can purchase eight more players and five more
locations. Arcade Mode allows you to choose a player and
then proceed through five matches to clear the mode. There
are five tournaments, but you only play one match a
tournament. These matches never consist of more than one
set. In fact, you select how many games you have to win to
win a match. The choices range from one game to six. You can
only choose your player in this mode. There is the original
eight, but the eight more unlocked in the World Circuit Mode
are also available later on.
At first I was disappointed by the World Circuit Mode.
However, the more I played it, the more addicted to it I
became. There are three types of locations in this mode, all
of which appear on the world map. There are shops located in
different countries. These shops allow you to purchase
players, which can be used in the Arcade and Exhibition
Modes as stated above. You can also purchase locations,
which you can use in only the Exhibition Mode, which was
also stated above. The other options include purchasing new
strings, energy drinks, and new clothes. You can get up to
28 new sets of shirts and shorts. Once you buy the clothes
they can be used in all three modes. The most important
thing to do at a shop is to contract a doubles partner. You
can't compete in the doubles mode of the World Circuit, if
you haven't contracted a double partner.
The other two types of locations are training areas and
trial matches. The training areas are probably one of the
most standout features of this game. There are eight
locations and each one has it's own training game. There are
three levels for each of these mini games and the difficulty
sometimes increases very much. Sometimes it doesn't seem to
get harder at all. The most difficult for me of the eight
training mini games, was the Pin Crasher game. It resembles
bowling. Ten pins are set up on the court and you have to
knock the pins over with your tennis ball by serving into
them. You have to accumulate a certain score to advance
through this game. The Level 3 of this game asks you to hit
a near perfect game and it's the last one I completed of all
eight training games.
Each of these games focus on a certain aspect of tennis.
Like the game I mentioned above helps you to develop your
serving skills. A smash is when you catch the ball in the
air and hit it with your racket. This will result in a fast,
powerful shot that is near impossible to return. To develop
this skill you have a mini game called Smash Box. Your coach
will lob the ball toward you and you have to knock all the
boxes off the court with a smash. As you progress through
this game, the higher levels add more boxes to the court.
Drum Shooter is a good way to test your lob ability. You
have to lob a tennis ball into each of the eight drum cans
positioned all over the court. Return Ace is very similar to
the smash box game. You have to knock the boxes off the
court by returning the coach's serve, but you only have a
certain amount of serves to knock them off with. The Giant
Ball allows you to improve your volley skills. You,
basically, have to knock about six balls that look like
oversized pool balls off the court.
The Cannon Ball game consists of you turning off the ball
machines by hitting them with the yellow balls they are
shooting at you. Red balls are also being shooting towards
you. If you hit one of those the machine will start again.
You have a time limit in this game. You have a time limit in
the Big Wall game as well. This game forces you to use both
normal shots and lobs to turn the ten panels over on a large
wall that is sitting in the middle of the court. Bull's Eye
features the coach hitting the ball to you. You have a time
limit to score a set amount of points by hitting the ball
toward the large bullseye on the other side of the court.
Getting a bullseye will earn you 500 points. Other point
values include 250, 150, and 50. If you don't hit anything
on the target, then naturally, you get 0 points.
You have to complete three levels in all eight of these
games to open the shops and other matches located all over
the world. The two types of matches you play are singles and
doubles. As you progress, your rank gets higher, and you
earn money based on the points you scored in a match. No
match is longer than an acutal set. You mostly will be
playing to win 2, 3, 4, or 6 games to win the match, but you
will never play more than one set. You also will not be
playing a full tournament. Instead, you will win a match and
the level will usually raise in that location as well.
After you finish all the training modes and trial matches
the final two matches will open up. You also should have
already purchased all the clothes, players, and stages out
of the shops to use in the other modes. Some of the flaws in
this game include that all the players are male. There are
no female players in the entire game. However, the players
are real life ranked players. You won't find Agassi or
Sampras, but Courier, Pioline, Henman, Haas, Moya,
Philippoussis, and Kafelnikov are all big name players that
are included in this game. The other minor flaw is the lack
of tournaments and the lack of playing more than a set a
match. These are all minor flaws and are quite easy for me
to overlook, because this is an outstanding game.
The control in this game is quite simple. You have your
normal shots and lobs. Serving is done by pressing a button,
allowing the meter to fill to decide how much power to put
on the serve, and then hitting the button again to actually
hit the ball as it is mid air. The shots are very realistic
and the ball very much does what you want it to do. You can
switch between a slightly overhead perspective and a more
baseline level view at any time by pressing the Y button.
This might be the only problem with the control, because
sometimes I would go for a lob and hit Y instead and simply
change the view perspective.
A really nice feature of this game, is the way the camera
moves in and out if you are playing with the overhead view.
As you approach the net, the camera moves in to get a closer
look at the action. If you move back to the baseline, the
camera will also move back out allowing you to see the full court.
You can change the difficulty of the game in the options
section. You can select to play on an easy, normal, hard, or
very hard setting. I mostly played on normal and it was
quite challenging at times. This is certainly not an easy
game and your opponents are quite intelligent. They adjust
their strategy based on what you have been doing. Also, they
are sometimes hard to judge. You may think they'll hit the
ball one way, because common tennis knowledge will tell you
it's logical to go to the empty side of the court. However,
as you run toward the empty side, you may find the ball was
hit behind you, where you had just been standing. The
training games range from very easy to very hard. As their
levels raise they do get very difficult to complete.
Overall, this game is challenging. It can also be
frustrating.
The sound effects in this game are very realistic. The balls
sound amazingly like they would as they bounce around on the
surface and fly through the air into rackets. The announcers
sound very realistic as well. If you are playing in France
at the French Open, the voice is speaking in French. This
game has great sound effects. You can adjust the volume of
the effects, as well, as the music in the options screen.
The music isn't quite as good as the effects. It's very rock
based, with a lot of guitar in it. However, you can turn it
off or lower so it won't be too distracting as you are
playing the game. It is somewhat distracting to attempt to
concentrate while listening to heavy guitar licks. Overall,
average music, but good effects.
The graphics in this game are also very realistic. The
backgrounds are quite amazing and occasionally feature some
very realistic backdrops, such as large buildings. The
crowds and stadiums are also very realistic. The training
games and the trial matches are in different locations. The
backgrounds emphasize this by being both detailed and having
a high amount of variety. The courts are also quite amazing
looking. They look very realistic. There are different types
of surfaces, ranging from clay to carpet to grass to hard
court. The best thing though is that not all the courts look
alike, even if they are the same type of surface. Two
different grass courts may look entirely different. For
example, the grass court found in England is quite worn out
at the baseline and toward the net as well. This is very
realistic as most grass courts do wear down in that way.
However, the grass court in Japan shows no wear at all. Even
without the wear though, both courts look nothing alike,
despite the fact they both have grass surfaces.
The only real flaw for me with the graphics were the players
themselves. They look very realistic, they move very
realistic, and they do look very much like their real life
counterparts. However, many times during the game you will
see both replays and reaction shots after a points. These
reaction shots are usually close ups and the faces look
incredibly unrealistic. For the most part though their
movements are realistic and so are their actions. I just
have a problem with the faces when they show a close up.
However, overall, this game features some very realistic
graphics. This is probably the best looking tennis game I
have ever played.
I played this game nonstop for a few days and I have no
desire of stopping yet. This game is very fun, very
addictive, and it has great replay value. The fact you have
a large variety of players and stages may make you want to
replay the Arcade and Exhibition modes a few times. All the
players also add some appeal to playing through the World
Circuit Mode again. Also, some of those mini games are
reason enough to replay the World Circuit mode. This game
has great replay value. Overall, this is a realistic looking
tennis game. It plays well. It has great control and a high
amount of challenge. It was quite easy for me to get
addicted to this game and the replay value on it is
excellent. This is a game I highly recommend, whether you
are a huge fan of tennis or just have a casual interest in
the sport.
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 8/10
Control - 9/10
Challenge - 8/10
Fun Factor - 10/10
Game Play - 10/10
Replay Value - 10/10
Overall - 10 out of 10
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