Monday 29 Jun 2009

It’s always something of a surprise when a time-honoured (or well-known at the very least) videogame franchise, usually able to deliver an overall solid and enjoyable experience, fails to elicit a favourable reaction with its latest edition, but this is the case with Virtua Tennis 2009.

Despite the provision of all the features you would expect in a tennis game, as well as a bevy of creative mini-games and multiplayer modes to mix up the offering, Virtua Tennis 2009 seems stuck in a transitory state, trying to provide both an arcade-like, slimmed down simulation of the game of tennis, while at the same time attempting to present a realistic take on the game, simultaneously providing neither, but rather a jumbled, non-celebratory sports game that simply goes through the motions.

One of the main features of Virtua Tennis 2009 is the ability to either play as one of your favourite (current) tennis stars, from Roger Federer to Maria Sharapova, or enter a career mode and create your own tennis star, working your way up both the amateur and professional rankings, eventually meeting the top tennis players on the court with a character that you’ve built up from a faceless avatar into a fearsome competitor.

How do you ensure your avatar is the best that it can be, though, simultaneously ensuring that you’re able to manage yourself on the court and defeat opponents of ever-increasing skill levels? By becoming both a career manager and a player at the same time, of course!

In the career mode, you’re able to build up your very own tennis player by customising everything from the way you want to look and your playstyles, to the equipment and clothing that you use, as well as managing your week-by-week activities, whether you’re entering tournaments, training with Tim Henman at his coaching institute, resting between matches and training to keep your weekly stamina up, or improving your footwork, racket-work and accuracy with a series of creative and fairly crazy mini-games, including collecting shopping items on the court (to improve footwork) and trying to return shots at a horde of ‘robots’ (to improve racket-work).

These mini-games are also playable on their own, but they’re usually only good for one play, and then you’re done. In the career mode, though, you’re going to need to play through a bunch of them many, many times (not including times when you lose, when you’re then forced to play again) in order to level up your abilities. All of this work, though, is in an effort to (very, very slowly) move up the ranks of the amateur career ladder, from the lowly hundreds to No. 1, when you’re deemed ready and able to challenge players in the professional league, also starting from rock-bottom to reach No. 1.

When entering tournaments, you’re expected to win every match in a series of elimination rounds, before being crowned the tournament winner. You’re then tasked with repeating this feat a few dozen times more. While this kind of feature (the opportunity to feel what it’s like to become a tennis pro) is neat in practice, having to play hundreds of matches to ever-so-slowly move up the ranks is an effort of enormous proportions, sure to test the patience of even the most diehard tennis fan.

This overtly stretched-out career mode isn’t helped by the lack of innovation, ingenuity and atmosphere in every match you play, with a limited range of moves and available strategy that tennis fans (and tennis videogame players) have come to expect. These matches are simply a means to an end – move up the ranks – rather than something to enjoy and behold, as with other tennis and tennis-like games (Top Spin 3, Rockstar’s Table Tennis) that treat each match as an exercise of your skill, providing an ambience and tension rarely present in a sports game.

Virtua Tennis has none of this, with opponents that will (very often) seemingly ‘switch off,’ and then either try to scramble (to the wrong side of the court) to return your shot, or realise (far too late) that, in fact, a ball has been returned at all. Match that with the twitchy controls, graphical glitches (such as body parts constantly popping through clothing), uninspired music and sound effects, as well as a graphics engine that is caught between the last and current generation of consoles, and you end up with a presentation and experience that is completely lacklustre compared to the previously mentioned games.

The inclusion of a multiplayer mode, the ability to play those mini-games at will, and the free play option, allowing you to play as your favourite tennis stars, go some way to improving the overall game on offer in Virtua Tennis 2009, but even these provisions end up falling down due to the banality of gameplay.

The ‘fulfilment-house’ developers, Sumo Digital, and in association with licence-holders, SEGA, would have done well to choose their direction early on in the development of the game – fully arcade, or fully realistic – and then carve themselves a niche by providing an identity for their brand and, in the process, own that niche. With Virtua Tennis 2009, though, the lacklustre presentation and flair, both before, after and during matches, places their latest offering low down on the tennis game ranking – rather pick up Top Spin 3 or even Rockstar’s Table Tennis if you’re itching for a similar experience.

Pros: Everything you may expect in a tennis game…

Cons: … with none of the identity or flair of a game like Rockstar’s Table Tennis

Rating:
Contributor:	Oliver

Purchase: