The World Tour is now a bizarre board game, adding a level of randomness to the career. Virtua Tennis 4 isn't all a rehash, but the new features don't add a lot to the experience. Not that there's a lot that can be improved in a tennis game (it's essentially a glorified Pong), but it's hard to get excited for a game I've played already. It's nearly all the same players, and the mechanics are identical. The meat of the game doesn't feel different than Virtua Tennis 3. The biggest problem with Virtua Tennis 4 is that it feels like I've played all this before. Not gonna lie, I yelled obscenities both in anger and joy during the final, most difficult tournament, and that's how a high energy, emotional game like tennis should feel. It's satisfying to hit a smash and watch the other guy dive for it. The opponents feel unique and require different strategies to defeat. The controls are tight, the animations are good, and the game has a great difficulty progression. It's got a wacky, over-the-top feel, and there is more of a focus on exciting tennis action and less on stats and attributes. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Top Spin and Virtua Tennis, but looking at SEGA's Virtua Tennis 4 – and how little has changed in the tennis world in the last four years – I'm more than fine with not reviewing one of these games every year.īetween the two major tennis games, Virtua Tennis was always the more arcade style game, while Top Spin was a more traditional tennis sim. If done properly, the addition of tight motion gaming and immersive 3D visuals could mark a long overdue return to form.Īre there any Federer wannabes in Rantland? Does Virtua Tennis 4 sound like an ace? Does it get you excited for either Move or 3D, or is the Wii going to win this one in straight sets? Tennis humor, yikes.Īudition for the spot of the lost Williams triplet when Virtua Tennis 4 smashes into stores next year.It's probably a good thing that tennis video games aren't an annual endeavor. Unfortunately, SEGA really hasn’t been able to put together a package with the same level of polish or mechanical finesse since then, and the sequels that we’ve gotten so far this generation have left several fans and critics wondering what happened to the once great franchise. Virtua Tennis 2 was the main reason my Dreamcast stayed hooked up long after that console’s funeral. There certainly was a time when the name Virtua Tennis actually stood for something amongst great tennis games. Let’s hope this is just due to it being an early build and not evidence of a major step backwards for the genre. The bad news is that IGN is reporting that the preview they saw did not feature user-controlled character movement but instead had the player at the mercy of a computer-controlled system. Something that serious players have wanted but have really only seen done decently well in Grand Slam Tennis on the Wii. While this is one of the few instances so far where the prospect of 3D actually has me pretty excited, seeing a 100mph Andy Roddick serve flying out of your television would be pretty awesome, I’d really be more interested in seeing a greater level of depth and precision to the control scheme added to the Move version of Virtua Tennis 4.
The real question is: Should we really expect it to play all that differently than what we’ve seen on the Wii? With the Move’s basic control set-up being dangerously close to the Wii, it only makes sense that we would see Sony try and capitalize on a game type that has shown some decent success on Nintendo’s console.
The simply titled Virtua Tennis 4 will ship with support for the PlayStation 3’s motion tech, Move, as well as being one of the many new titles to sport 3D compatibility.
Sony announced that SEGA has the next installment of the Virtua Tennis series already in the works. Yet another big name franchise has been given a sequel at Gamescom 2010.