Really Virtual Tenis(too good) (Virtua Tennis (DC))

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Product:	Virtua Tennis (DC)
Date:	26/05/01 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: multiplayer, graphics r brill

Disadvantages: umm,

anyone for strawberries and cream?

It's long been a pet niggle of mine that tennis games are so often crap. Afterall, is there any other sport so ideally suited to a video game? It's fast, simple and tests both reaction and accuracy. Indeed, was Pong, generally accepted as the first true video game, not a spin on the bat and ball theme? In recent years Super Tennis on the SNES and Smash Tennis (available on the PlayStation as Anna Kournikova's Smash Court Tennis) were about the best of the bunch.

Enter Virtua Tennis, and it effortlessly serves and volleys its way to the top of the generic tree. It is quite simply sublime. A tour de force of sports simulations in fact. Sega have avoided the temptation to overcomplicate matters with loads of fiddly special moves and the like. There are just two buttons - normal shot and lob. These, combined with D-pad movements, give the player a full arsenal of shots, all instantly and intuitively accessible.

Much emphasis is placed on timing and positioning. Hitting the ball isn't difficult, but for good shots you need to be in the right place, and this often means anticipating where your opponent is going to go. This element is excellent, especially in two-player mode since the computer gets quite predicable after a few plays. Against a friend it's a great feeling to sell him across court then hit a clean winner down the line. Net play can be very effective too but, just as in the real thing, you have to pick the shot to follow in or a competent opponent will just lob it back over your head and out of reach. It means rallys tend to be more realistic than other tennis games. In Smash Tennis for example rallys between experienced players could easily go for ten or 20 shots, but here it's rare, just like real. As a result when you do get into a rally the tension really starts to build and the sense of satisfaction at winning a hard-fought point is genuine.

Perfect ten-nis
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What really makes it though are the incredible graphics. You realise what a shame it is that the DC is on it's way out when you see something like this. There are loads of courts, all beautifully rendered, as are the players. Eight real pros are available including Henman, Courier and Phillipoussis, with a further eight made up ones to unlock in the World Tour Mode. This is kind of a cross between a championship circuit and the Crazy Box from Crazy Taxi. You get to enter tournaments and challenges and, each time you win, a new feature is unlocked. This might be the next round of a tournament, a level up on one of the challenges (such as knocking down skittles in the opposite court using serves) or a shop where bonus items can be bought with credits earned. Some of these are for use in the World Tour mode only. Others, like alternative outfits, new courts and extra players can then be taken and used in exhibition mode.

All the game lacks are a few basic features that would have been the icing on the cake. Some sort of proper pro tour mode and ranking system, even if most of the players were invented, would be nice. Most amazingly though, you can only play a maximum of one set in a match. Duh! Okay you can make up your own five setters but why the hell isn't there an option to do it in-game?

Despite this Virtua Tennis is an absolutely essential purchase for every Dreamcast owner. In fact if you like Tennis it's almost worth buying a Dreamcast for. Graphically stunning, packed with features and playability out of the very top drawer. It also manages to hit that tricky balance of pick-up-and-playability essential in a game of this type yet it's also bursting with long-term appeal. There's a great deal more subtlety to the play than first appears. In short, buy it!


A few more titles like this and the Dreamcast wouldn't be in the mess it is. This is a genuinely superb game and one that will keep coming out o
f the cupboard for many months with its amazing multiplayer mode and graphics that truly dazzle

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