EXCELLENT GAME! (Virtua Tennis (DC))

Name: FLYING FOX

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Product:	Virtua Tennis (DC)
Date:	17.09.01 (293 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Really fun!

Disadvantages: None

Virtua Tennis is an excellent sports game, on the Sega Dreamcast, fresh from the arcades to your console, last year. It may be over a year old, and the sequel due out soon, but the fact is Virtua Tennis is one of the most playable, addictive and downright fun games available now. From that, you can probably tell that I like it then. Sega Sports – more importantly: Hit Maker are the developers, Sega the publishers, and me and you – the consumers. Works well I think.

The idea: Virtua Tennis recreates real life tennis, but makes it a whole lot simpler for you to understand and is actually great fun to play – for those who can’t play real tennis that well, you will love this – even if you are good at tennis, you will probably appreciate this one. The game has a variety of modes in which to show off your virtual prowess – it’s a tennis game, Virtua Tennis recreates real life tennis and sticks it into your home. Saving you the money of buying a tennis court, wondering how to play and embarrassing yourself in the process.

Get a Dreamcast, get Virtua Tennis, grab three mates and you’re sorted. Virtua Tennis has a superb control system, which is very easy to master – which is one of the reasons the game has such a widespread appeal. Everyone I know that has played this, loves it, you should give it a try. A and B are all you need for the shots, with the directional pad or analogue pad being used to move your player frantically across the court. A is your basic shot – it’s the one you can use for everything depending on where your player is at the time. B is just for lobbing. Serves can be learned easily, and overall the controls are very intuitive – top marks.

Game modes & Players: Take your pick from 8 of the world’s elite, well not quite the best players (licence budget might not stretch far enough for Agassi and 7 other players…), but you do get to choose from T
im Henman, representing Great Britain, Courier for the USA, Philippoussis for Australia, Kafelnikov for Russia, Tommy Haas representing Germany, Cedric Pioline for France, Moya for Spain and Johansson for Sweden! As you progress through the excellent action packed world circuit mode, you will be able to unlock new players (made up, but still good), and new stadiums to play at.

There is an air of official status here as the players are real, aside from the created ones, and all look authentic and real. The stadiums and courts look great, with a range of surfaces including clay, grass, carpet and indoor, and the crowds, umpire, shot sounds, player grunts, all are realistic.

So Graphically it is a very good game indeed, the colours are vibrant and lively, and everything is very fast, fluid and visually impressive – the replays are also good, they happen whenever you play a particularly good smash or volley, or an ace perhaps. The game has some of the best graphics you’ll see on the Dreamcast, so it’ll be interesting to see how good Virtua Tennis 2 looks in comparison, incidentally, that game should be out in late October or November and will include female players as well.

If you don’t feel like taking the world on in the circuit mode then you can always just go into the Arcade mode, try and win all the rounds, each one harder than the last, until you finally win the championship and enter your name in – if you win all 5 without using a continue, (leaving the difficulty level still on the preset one), then you will have a challenge from ‘Master’, win that match, you’ll be able to use it in the other modes. Exhibition is the only other mode (other than the options) and is basically the one where you’ll have your four player sets – great fun, very competitive and something to keep you occupied on a rainy day.

Overall, the game will last you a great deal of time, four player ga
mes will always be played and never get boring, even if you do race through the world circuit mode. It’s an excellent game, one that I would recommend to all of you. 10/10.

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