Virtua Tennis: Love is in the air

I don’t know what I was thinking when I got Virtua Tennis that day at Funcoland with Skies of Arcadia, but I guess it just looked cool when I saw it on the racks. Well now I’m glad I bought it, because I have enjoyed every little bit of it from beginning to end(and it’s fun with multi-player).

Lob Me A Good One
I never have liked tennis. I thought it was gay, stupid, out of style; and that only people who played tennis were too weak to play football, wrestling, hockey, or soccer. That was until I actually played this game, and since buying the game, I’ve actually bought a racket and have been to the tennis courts like three times already.

OK first of all, I have no clue about the terminology used in Tennis like lob, love, deuce, or how the point system goes, so don’t expect me to be an expert and explain every little detail.

So anyway, you’ve got three different play decisions; Arcade, Exhibition, and World Circuit. The exhibition is where you set your own rules and is also where the two-player mode is(either against each other or in a doubles match against the computer). Then you've got the Arcade, which you can go through with singles or doubles(doubles are where you play with a partner), five different tournaments or matches; such as the French, England, Australia, and the final match for the championship. The last mode is World Circuit, where you’ve got training areas that you can work on techniques with, and then there’s matches that you can join all over the world. And with the money you make for winning(you get money every time you win in the Arcade too), you can buy a variety of new tennis accessories; such as water bottles, new strings, new outfits, new courts, and other things related to tennis.

Which side? Why there? Why can’t I do that?
When you start up a match, you’ll either be on the top of the screen or bottom of the screen, it depends on the mode you’re in. One person will serve the ball(you or the computer), and you have to hit it diagonally inside a square in order for it to count. If anybody’s ever seen a tennis court, I need not say more. Once the ball is served, play will start and you will now try to score on your opponent, before he scores on you.

There are a few kinds of hits in tennis like lobs, spikes, and regular hits. Lobs are just hits that go high in the air over the net, while regular hits are just where you’d hit the ball over the net without something special. Then there’s the spikes, which if your opponent lobs a ball up, as long as you’re closely wider the ball, you’ll jump up for a power shot that’s really hard o stop(especially if you’re on the ground after lobbing the ball over in the first place).

Yay, I scored!
Some of you out there are probably totally CLUELESS about how the scoring is done, which is OK because I had no idea before I got the game(I could have learned in gym class, but I never paid attention, all I wanted to do was play the stupid game rather than listening to the teacher teach all the gay common sense stuff). Anyway, unlike volleyball where you have to be serving to score; in tennis you can score both ways, whether you’re serving or receiving the ball.

The point system goes 15, 30, 40, game. But, say that you score a point, so it’d be 15 love; then your opponent scores the next serve and so it’s 15-15 all; then you score the next two times, so it’s 40-15 love, now all you would need is one point, however your opponent comes back and scores two points so that he’s now tied with you 40-40, and that’s called a deuce. After that, you have to score two times in a row, because the next point would be to get ahead, and then the second point is the break point, because I guess you have to win by two points(like in Volleyball).

Every time after 40, someone gets a point...and then the other person will get a point too, it’ll keep going Deuce 2, Deuce 3, Deuce 4, Deuce 5, and so-on and so forth. One time I was playing a heated match and that’s all we did for about 30 minutes; I scored, he scored, I scored, he scored...and etc. etc.

I’m pretty sure no one really understood me explaining the point system and such; but like I said in my Skies of Arcadia review, you’d have to actually play the game to understand what I’m attempting to explain to you.

“I Love it when you call me big pa-pa, so put ya hands in da air, if yousa true playa”
I think that’s my favorite song right now, cause it seems that every time I start a new review, I’m always listening to that song, and then I quote it somewhere in the review. Anyway, there are 8 different tennis players to choose from, and I think they’re all real-world competitors.

Each player has their own strength like speed, a good shot, nice back hand, nice fore hand, or they’re just a well balanced player with a little skill in each of the areas. I couldn’t really tell the difference when I was playing, but for those who like to pick a game to its bare bones might notice a little difference or so.

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Graphics
Creating the polygons needed to make sports simulations(or arcade) to look as real and authentic as possible to the real thing, is one of the hardest things to do in a game. Well the developer for Virtua Tennis did a good job in providing as much realisticity(is that a word?) as they could do(and it’s not Visual Concepts, they did Tennis 2k2, a completely different game for Virtua Tennis{well not COMPLETELY different, but you know what I mean}).

I don’t know what the players look like in real life(cause’ to tell the truth; next to golf, tennis is one of the most boring sports ever to watch{now if you were actually PLAYING, then that’s a different story}), but in Virtua Tennis they look pretty durn’ tootin’ good. The face models are fairly smooth, and the movements are about as realistic as they could get using the Dreamcast’s hardware.

The various tennis courts are also designed fairly well, while the stadiums they play in are actually pretty colorful. There are different types of court surfaces such as; clay, hard, carpet, and grass - with each one having its own effect on the ball. For example(I don’t know if this is true or not, I’m just trying to make a comparison so you can understand), the hard courts could give the ball more speed, but less control; when the grass courts may not help the ball in speed, but it will have better control than the hard surface.

(begin rant)
The only two graphical quirks I can complain about is sometimes it’s hard to tell where the ball is getting shot at and so it’s like a blur of green fur whizzing right past you. It’s not really that big of a deal, but some people may have trouble keeping up with the ball(even though it’s bright green, it’s still hard to distinguish sometimes). The other little graphical quirk is that there’s no weather elements like rain, snow; stuff like that. I know that they usually don’t play tennis while it’s raining or snowing( unless they’re inside) like football and soccer players do, but since Virtua Tennis is more the Arcadey type(check out Tennis 2k2 by Visual Concepts for a tennis simulation), I think that weather elements like rain, snow, or ice might have made the game a little less boring at times.
(/end rant)

Control
There’s not much to it, just move to the ball and hit it over the net, simple as that(of course you’ve got the little diving saves, power shots, and stuff like that (that) will be learned over time). The controls are very responsive, and getting to the ball before a point is scored isn’t that big of a hassle(most the time).

Sound
You’ve got the sound of sneakers, tennis balls, rackets, spectator applauses, announcers; and anything else you can think of that would go with a tennis game. The thing I really like in the sound aspect is like while playing on the Spanish courts, you’ve got that cool Spanish music playing in the back ground... I think that’s really cool. Also depending on the court you’re playing on(Australia, French), the announcers will speak with the accent from their country; I thought that was really cool too.

Overall
Virtua Tennis is an awesome game to get, and even though there aren’t that many play options, it’s always fun to go back through and play for the heck of it. For under ten dollars, Virtua Tennis is well worth the investment. I just wish there was online play, but I’m not even sure if Tennis 2k2 has online though; cause the 2k series(Basketball, Baseball, and Football) usually has online play(2k1 and up, and NHL 2k2 still doesn’t have online either). Also; the easy, normal, and hard mode may be too easy for some people after they’ve played it for a few days - so I just put it on very hard mode when I first got it, and boy is it hard.

Next Review in Dreamcast Month: Bomberman Online

~Happy Gaming