Hot Shots Tennis

Hot Shots Tennis is one of those games that you just knew was coming.

The logical next country-club-sport follow-up to the enormously popular Hot Shots Golf franchise is like a carbon copy. Instead of clubs, you have racquets. In place of courses, you have courts. In lieu of balls...wait.

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Mascot Sports Showdown

Watch out, Nintendo. Sony is branching out its mascot-like Hot Shots Golf series with Hot Shots Tennis. While it may seem like Mario Tennis with its quirky characters and cutesy animations, Hot Shots Tennis is much more elaborate than the casual, often over-the-top goofy style of the former. In fact, Hot Shots Tennis does some very new things with tennis gameplay.

For starters, it's not the simple "hold the X button down for as long as you can" swing mechanic. In Hot Shots Tennis, your swing timing and distance from the ball affects your resulting shot. If you take a swing too close to the ball, you'll get jammed a bit and hit a weaker shot; trial and error will force you to recognize what the ideal distance is to hit a smooth return. Timing plays a big role in successful shots, too, especially with serves. The same iconic though bubbles from Hot Shots Golf display how satisfied your character is with each shot: a frown is bad, music notes are good and, well, there's only so much we can say about bunny ears.

There are three modes of play: Hot Shots Challenge (progressive career mode), Fun Time Tennis (multiplayer), and Training Mode, which is actually a lot of fun. Training presents a series of point-based challenges, where you're given a grade, that are unmistakably difficult. Swearing will ensue.

Equipped

It's an almost new cast of 14 characters in Hot Shots Tennis, with Suzuki and Gloria carrying over from Golf. Umpires take the place of caddies, but they're just as wacky looking and sounding as they're club-carrying counterparts. 11 courts and an assortment of character costumes round out the first Hot Shots Tennis game. Right now, no signs point to more Hot Shots franchising, but we'll just have to wait and see if it expands beyond the rich-people sports.

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