Review: Virtua Tennis 2009 (PS3)

Author: Tigervamp | Date: July 4, 2009

It is that time of year again and Wimbledon is in full swing (pun intended!). As with every televised sporting event I feel an urge to go outside and play the sport in question but that is usually dwarfed by the urge to remain indoors and play a videogame version instead. Along comes Sega’s Virtua Tennis 2009 to save the day or at least that’s what I hoped.

I am a fan of the Virtua Tennis series and I have especially fond memories of the Dreamcast version. As far as visuals are concerned this does of course look better but the difference isn’t as great as it should be. No matter how much effort you put into your created player they will still look awful but to soften the blow the amateurs in World Tour mode also appear to have been created by a blind or heavily drunk person. The well known Tennis superstars in the game barely look like their real life counterparts and I honestly don’t think they’re much more recognisable than the players were on the Dreamcast. This may seem like an exaggeration but this is brought about by sports games such as UFC Undisputed and Fight Night Round 4, which both look great, putting Virtua Tennis 2009 in its place.

The animation is hit or miss with some nice looking movement ruined by the occasional terrible framerate issue and the last thing you want to happen in the middle of a rally is to have everything stutter for a moment. Another issue I have with the animation is a lack of mannerisms which we associate with certain Tennis players. When I play a Tennis game I want to see Andy Murray pump his fist after every important point as he does in real life complete with some vocal frustrations when he gets something wrong and this leads me nicely onto my next point.

The audio in this game consists of repetitive music and sound effects which are for the most part substandard. The music may appeal to some but to my ears it sounds like remixed upbeat elevator music and I can’t say that’s my thing. Other than the racket hitting the ball, which produces a satisfying popping sound, the sound effects aren’t quite right. You could say I’ve went out of my way to study Maria Sharapova, since she burst onto the scene a few years ago, and I can report that her in-game screams are limited to serves and aren’t anywhere near as impressive as her real life trademark noises.

The World Tour mode is essentially identical to that in the previous game and it starts off as enjoyable but quickly becomes a chore. I’m sure you’re aware that in the real world amateur Tennis players must win fifty singles and doubles tournaments in order to turn professional. Hold on a minute, that would be absolute madness, of course that doesn’t happen in the real world but it’s exactly what happens in this game. You create a character and start off with an amateur rank of 100 and each tournament gives you a choice of playing singles, doubles, or both. If like me you’re an expert at this game (I’ll explain this statement in a moment) you’ll absolutely annihilate every amateur you face regardless of their higher position in the rankings. The “absolutely annihilate” description is painfully accurate as I didn’t lose a solitary game, in singles or doubles, throughout my amateur career. You tear the opposition apart, win everything on offer, and only climb a couple of places in the rankings after each tournament. It won’t take you the full fifty tournaments as once you’ve risen high enough in the rankings you begin to climb a little quicker but once you factor in practice matches you’re not far off that idea. In the practice matches you hammer AI players who are then added to your list of doubles partners for upcoming tournaments but your choice doesn’t matter since you could more than handle two AI players on your own. There are the usual arcade games throughout your career, which can also be played from the main menu, and these are quite fun for a while but you’ll probably become bored of them as I did, avoid playing them, and forego the associated attribute increase.

I described myself as an “expert” and that’s purely because the game made me feel this way. In my very first tournament against the AI, outside of World Tour, I set the difficulty to hard, six games per set, best of three sets, and chose to play as Andy Murray. I knocked out Djokovic and Ferrero to reach the final in which I faced and duly beat Nadal. Winning on hard difficulty doesn’t suggest I’m an expert at the game but when you take into account that I did so without losing a single game, 6-0 across the board, Virtua Tennis 2009 is either too easy or I am truly awesome. It could have been my bad luck but I found the online play to be riddled with lag which causes the same problems as poor framerate but frustratingly more frequent.

I didn’t want this to be an end to end bashing of Virtua Tennis 2009 so I’m thankful that the core of the game is as much fun as it ever was. Approaching the net for a well-placed volley or smashing the ball across court, into the far corner, and out of the reach of your opponent is very enjoyable. The problem is that fans of the series expect this level of fun and, since they can get that from Virtua Tennis if they dust off their Dreamcast, what they deserve are improvements on every other area and that hasn’t been forthcoming. If you happen to be new to the series and you’re looking for a game of Tennis to pick up and play now and again then this may be worth a look but otherwise I suggest waiting on the next instalment which will hopefully be a big improvement.

6/10

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