Virtua Tennis: Sega Professional Tennis
- November 24, 2000 14:47 PM PST
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Tennis doesn't exactly raise adrenaline levels in the average sports gamer, but Sega's arcade hit Virtua Tennis promises to get all you hardcore roundball/gridiron freaks using words like "Love" and "Let" in your everyday speech.
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Grand Slam
Everyone knows tennis exists, but not everyone knows how cool it is. While watching a televised game between Cedric Pioline and Jim Courier doubles as a no-fault insomnia cure, Sega's Virtua Tennis gets you involved and makes you the tennis pro. The philosophy here is fun; Sega has chosen to overlook certain realism and challenge aspects to make sure you have a good time. Taking into account that the players you're controlling (all real-world pros like Jim Courier and Yevgeny Kafelnikov) are already tennis experts, Virtua Tennis takes away some of the racquet-placement action and focuses on shot placement and court coverage. This means you're always moving, constantly planning where to land the ball to best get it past your opponent.
Not only is the game fun, but it's also gorgeous. Never have sweaty tennis jocks looked this good on a console. The characters move quickly and smoothly, and the framerate easily keeps up with the action. Between serves you're treated to short-but-sweet real time cut scenes, showing your player experiencing the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. Great plays live on in crisp, motion-blurred replays that serve mostly to facilitate smacktalk.
No Fault Of Its Own
Making tennis fun is not only the job of the graphics, but also the sound. Virtua Tennis sounds like a day at the hard court, with great audience gasps and applause, clear ball-and-racquet sounds, and amazing voice overs. If you're on an American court, the announcer speaks with an American accent. British announcers have a British inflection, and French announcers actually speak French. The only thing to complain about is the game's generic guitar rock soundtrack, which seems to loop and repeat incessantly.
With the emphasis on ball placement and court coverage, the controls have to be tight, and they are. Within minutes of picking up the controller, you're playing like a pro, returning volleys and mad serves like you've done it all your life. Enough room for error exists that you have to plan your moves and outguess your opponents, using topspin and backspin to place the ball where he can't get it. The subtlety in the ball control really makes this game top-notch, but sometimes the controls seem to hiccup, and your guy will dive for balls he could have just hit normally, among other small quirks.. Thankfully, these problems are rare.
Supreme Court
Virtua Tennis took a reviewer known for his love of wrestling games and UFC and turned him into a tennis pro. If you're not careful, it'll do the same to you. This is definitely one of the most purely fun sports games in a long time, up there with Sega Bass Fishing in the Games You're Embarrassed To Enjoy category. If you're a sports fan, go get it.
