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Virtua Tennis World Tour

Still probably the best series of tennis games ever made, the Virtua Tennis games haven’t been made for consoles for a very long time. Instead, it seems that the folks at Sega have been satisfied with keeping the Virtua Tennis games to handhelds. The GBA got one and even the N-Gage got one, and both did a damn good job of repackaging the series’ solid gameplay with only 2D graphics to work with.

However, now that both the new handhelds support pretty good 3D graphics, it seems that there was no real excuse to go the 2D route again, and so what we’ve got is a handheld title that looks every bit as slick and polished as its console counterparts. Oh, it still suffers a few of the problems that a lot of series see when they make the jump to PSP, but all in all this is the return to form that fans of the series have been waiting for.

The graphics themselves are nothing particularly special, but they still have a lot of nice little touches. The “cloud cover” shadows that are cast on the outdoor courts, hair that reacts realistically to gravity, impeccable character animation and smooth framerate usually do a good job of making up for the fact that the character models are terrible (almost as bad as the ones in the first Virtua Tennis) and the crowds look unbelievably fake whenever you get a good look at them.

The sound is far more impressive. Although the music is the same synthesized crap the series has had from the beginning (would it have hurt Sega to license some real music?), the sound effects are nothing short of brilliant. Every squeak of shoe against solid flooring, every “pock” of the ball hitting the ground, and every last grunt of the various players as they swing… it’s damn near perfect.

And, so too is the gameplay. Yes, Virtua Tennis retains the simple yet deep gameplay of its console predecessors, and in turn it’s every bit as fun. Well, almost. It seems that this time, the game is a great deal harder, although it’s difficult to tell whether this is due to the smaller screen, the frustration caused by having to use the PSP’s analog nubbin rather than a control stick, or the plain and simple ramping up of computer players’ AI. It may be wise to head into the options screen and change the difficulty to “easy” to start off with. And for that matter, you may want to skip the World Tour mode unless you’re very patient.

The World Tour mode is actually where the bulk of the game is, although it would seem that a few things weren’t thought through all that well here. It starts with you creating two custom characters, one male and one female, and then you guide them through a training regimen across the country that has them playing a series of mini-games to enhance their stats in preparation for tournaments where they can win cash to buy new outfits, rackets, and unlock various locations to play tennis in.

The main problem comes into play where you have to build up their stats. At the beginning of their world tour, custom-made characters are outright pathetic, and a poor match for even the most unskilled opponents. This means training, training, and more training, and rather than giving you new goals to add new boosts to stats, you’re stuck playing the same eight minigames over and over again to build up your stats. A game like this really calls for a Tony Hawk-style progression system, where you complete different goals to improve your character. Instead, we’re stuck frickin’ level-grinding like a bad RPG. Oh, and when you finally are ready to enter a tournament, have fun waiting for one to roll around on the calendar. Particularly if you can’t afford to buy a doubles partner you could be waiting months of in-game time before a tournament you’re qualified to enter is scheduled.

There are some other little quirks that make the game less enjoyable too. For one, the lack of online play is a really disappointing omission, although I kinda’ can’t say I blame Sega (the game probably won’t sell quite as much as the latest Madden or gangsta’ shooting title, sadly, so there wouldn’t be a lot of people to play with anyways). Less forgivable is the constant load times that plague the disc, going so far as to even cause momentary pauses as you select a mode on the main menu. For a game with an otherwise top-notch presentation, this needless annoyance seems all the more apparent.

The game does pack in a bunch of value to make it worthwhile, including four “ballgames” that take the game’s mechanics and use them for unusual minigames. It’s also nice to see more current stars (like Maria Sharapova) joining favorites that have been around since the first Virtua Tennis (like Henman and Haas). And there’s plenty of modes to choose from for everyone ranging from those looking to be set up with a quick game, to those who want to compete in a full-length tournament.

While the game does have a few flaws, at its core this is still a fine entry in a tennis series that is still the best there is. I can’t wait to see what Sega does with future installments, and with a new arcade game in the works, we’ll probably be seeing the franchise’s long-awaited return to consoles very soon now. In the meantime, Virtua Tennis: World Tour is definitely good enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the fantastic console games, and it’s quite easily the best handheld game of tennis ever made, bar-none.

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Tags: Virtua Tennis World Tour

Posted by Jake McNeill on Nov 27th, 2005 and is filed under PSP Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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