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Virtua Tennis: World Tour Mini Review
Jon Wilcox
01/09/2005
TVG hits the courts in SEGA`s PSP version of the classic tennis franchise...
For the second time in two years SEGA has launched their classic franchise Virtua Tennis onto a handheld (GBA was the recipient last time around back in 2003), with the arrival of Virtua Tennis World Tour on PSP. Even though the lineage of tennis titles in the history of videogames goes about as far back as you can think (Pong, anyone?) the strong gameplay and addictive experience has lasted regardless of whether the players are represented as two white paddles trying to hit a rebounding square, or as 'virtual' incarnations of the real tennis pros. In the last few years Top Spin and the Virtua Tennis series have been at the forefront of tennis titles; so addictive are the games that stories of playing the first Virtua Tennis in a hotel room full of competitive E3 attendees still reverberate around TVG Towers (if you give Chris half a chance to tell you about them that is.) So already World Tour looks to be heading in the right direction just by being a tennis titleā¦
Besides the main World Tour (more on that shortly), gamers can also enjoy Quick Matches, Tournaments, Exhibition Matches, and Ball Games that add a level of depth and lifespan that quite frankly a lot of PSP titles cannot even hope to match. Very much mini-games that can hold the attention for a couple of minutes right up to an hour at a time, they offer the quick fix and alternative to the Quick Match option. Continuing the heritage of previous Virtua Tennis titles, World Tour includes a world circuit mode (although renamed 'World Tour' for the PSP) to once again enable gamers to take a chance and try to become the number #1 tennis player in the world. In World Tour gamers take control of a male and female tennis player and begin with their rankings at a rather lowly 300 as they enter various tournaments around the globe and develop their skills in a multitude of mini-games created to hone a particular skill such as 'stroke', 'serve' and 'volley.' Tennis shops provide a level of customisation for the players so the characters can be decked out in a range of clothing and armed with a variety of rackets, as well as enabling gamers to sign contracts with some of the other pro tennis players for doubles matches. But to purchase the items, players have to win matches - so onto the courts.
Virtua Tennis allows gamers to face fourteen of the biggest names in world tennis today including Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Venus Williams, Maria Sharapova and Britain's very own Wimbledon obsessed 'Tiger' Tim Henman on a variety of court types such as grass and clay in some of the biggest tournaments in the world (including unlicensed Grandslam events.) As you'd expect each of the surface types change the feel for the ball so that the speed is faster on a Hard court than it would be on a Clay court, the bounce is lower on a Grass court compared to a Hard court, and so on. The effect is very real with styles of stroke and strategies both being affected by the type of surface on the court. As well as the Singles matches, Doubles games play an important part in the tennis calendar and once a player has partnered up with one of the pros, it's game on. It has to be said that the AI of a the computer controlled partner is high although gamers do have some level of control over them and tell them whether to take an offensive of defensive position on the court - easily done (thanks to the shoulder buttons on the PSP) and it doesn't distract from the gameplay.
Controlling the player and the strokes made during a match is as simple as the game itself with each button representing a different type of shot and changing the direction of the ball is accomplished by moving the PSP nipple (of the D-pad) with serves measured by a strength meter. Solid and reliable the controls don't even need much of a viewing aside from discovering how to lob making Virtua Tennis exceptionally intuitive to play - it's hard to think how the control system can be improvedā¦
Like the control system, the visuals of Virtua Tennis cannot be criticised with the power of the PSP on full show; the tennis pros look like their real world equivalents with the replays allowing gamers to fully appreciate just how good this game looks. Once again the screen of the handheld displays the game with a crispness rarely seen on a PlayStation2 title, and the widescreen feature taken to full advantage. The Virtua Tennis series has always been renowned for high quality player animations and once again the developers have managed to recreate an accurate depiction of the real world game. From simple running cross-court to diving for the ball, the players look smooth and flow remarkably well - working together with the control system to compound the level of realism that has come to be expected from the series over the years. Aside from a lack of commentary (which would prove difficult to achieve successfully on any system) all of the sounds of the tennis court help to finish off the Virtua Tennis experience with plenty of 'thirty, love', 'advantage Henman' and other appropriate phrases.
To create a game that provides enough gameplay for both short-term and longer-term use has to be one of the main objectives for PSP developers, and those who manage to successfully create that balance have produced some of the highlights of the PSP's European launch package. There was no doubt that Virtua Tennis World Tour would appeal, but the developers have accomplished to create a game that does strike a balance between short and long-term play. The title always had the winning formula on the home consoles and therefore shouldn't have been too much of an issue for the developers. Like only a few other launch titles, this is a game that has to be owned from the beginning. Thoroughly addictive stuff.
