The latest addition to the well known Virtua Tennis franchise delivers yet more arcade style tennis on a virtual court. However, does this new instalment ace its rivals or does it fall short of then net.

Almost nothing has changed from its predecessor a couple of years ago. You create a custom character, play a variety of minigames to build up stamina and compete in world tour events using the same gameplay format as before. Difficulty is pretty simple at the beginning of the game and you will win your first few matches with no problem whatsoever. As your ranking increases, the difficulty skill level also increases along with it. Some matches and tournaments later on in the game can become excruciatingly difficult and require a very advanced skill level and lots of practice.

As you may have experienced before, playing the same old matches again and again can quickly become a drag and can get quite tiresome. You do win prize money by winning tournaments to spend on new equipment but as it all looks the same and hardly affects your actual play, there is little incentive to play through all the tournaments.

If there is 1 thing that will appeal to you most, it is the vast array of fun minigames that take all kinds of crazy ideas and merge them into a tennis based game that helps to improve you multitude of skills. There are 12 games in total which range from feeding animals with fruit to hitting Lego blocks. There are also some re-appearances from previous games such as knocking trash cans over with fore-hand and back-hand shots. Best of all, these minigames can be played both on and offline with up to 4 other players.

If you have had enough of the single player world tour, then you can take you game online and compete with other players of similar rnkings around the world.

As mentioned before, the gameplay has remained unchanged from previous games. The gameplay remains fast and fluid so that matches are always active and fast paced but this does not make enough impact to counter for the repetitive style of gameplay.  The best strategy is to position your self in good time for the ball to land so that you can power up your shot to the full extent and it slices and lobs with high precision. The more you train on minigames, the more power and maneuverability you have. 

Using the Wii remote can sometimes be a bit awkward but with the aid of Wii Motion Plus, a more natural racket swing can be achieved. However, it is not just how you swing that matters as the timing is also important if you want push your opponent to one side of the court. If you are using a Wii then it would be recommended to have a practice and get the hang of the controls before entering more advanced matches and tournaments.

Visually, there is nothing spectacular with Virtua Tennis 2009. Character models can look a bit stiff and robotic particularly in the in-game camera cut-scenes.

The Virtua Tennis franchise used to dominate the Tennis simulation genre but now rivals such as Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii seem to polish up some of the flaws that are encountered in Vurtua Tennis 2009. Due to its lack of innovation, Virtua Tennis hasn’t been taken a great step further in 2009 and hopefully, next year there will be some more variation to keep the series in pole position.

+ Fun and enjoyable minigames

+ New Online Tour mode.

- Almost identical to Virtua Tennis 3.

- Visuals have not improved.

- World Tour quickly gets dull and tedious.

6.2/10 

By Ian Ratledge Posted Sunday, July 26th, 2009 1:11 pm