virtua tennis review - great !!

virtua tennis, a way to practice on screen

Virtua Tennis is a great game on so many levels. The nice thing is that you can just pick up and play without reading a lot of instructions and still have a lot of fun, or you can build a character and really get into the games and tournaments and move up in the ranks. I played the game first without the Wii MotionPlus yesterday and it was fun, but when the MotionPlus arrived today I found it gave me more control over my racket and the way I hit the ball. It also made it easier to do slice and drop shots, lob shots or smash the ball. You have to physically take a backhand or forehand stance to accurately hit the ball. You have to twist and turn your body just like you would in a real game. It makes the whole experience that much more realistic.

I loved the Wii Sports Tennis and spent hours and hours playing, but always wished there was more to it. Virtua Tennis is the answer to my prayers. First off, the graphics are really beautiful. You have a choice of places to play like New York, Paris, Melbourne and others. The players look and move like real people. Not that I'm knocking those cute little Mii's but you know what I mean. There are lots of characters to choose from if you want to just play online matches or you can start your own career in the World Tour. You select a basic character to start and then refine their looks with a whole bunch of different options. You actually have quite a bit of control over the way they look and this "me" looks like a real person. Then you have a bunch of options to train and develop your player and enter tournaments around the world while you move up (hopefully!) in rankings, pushing to become Number 1.

One of the many things included in this game is the Tennis Academy where you can learn and brush up on techniques like serving, strokes, and footwork. You can choose which ones you want to work on. You can change your character's ability and play styles or unlock more by completing different Tennis Academy Missions. You can also select challenges from the global map to help improve your game skills.

Other options are competitions where you can play practice matches or sponsorship matches. In the sponsorship matches you can win prize money that you can use in the Tennis Store to buy more clothes, rackets, court passes and all kinds of stuff. It's just one of the little things things that add to the realism of the game.

There are also several Court Games in the World Tour mode, with names like Alien Attack, Avalanche, Court Curling and mnay more. The ones I tried just seemed kind of goofy and I'm more interested in playing tennis so I haven't really tried many of them yet. There is also online play where you can play matches with friends or anyone who has the game and is online. Imagine coming home from work at night and playing a match with a friend on the other side of the country. Or having a regular Saturday morning tennis game with a kid away at college or a friend in another state.

This game is great fun even if you're not a kid or if you're a 60 year old one like me. My reason for buying a Wii was exercise that's fun and this is exactly that. It'll get you up and moving and it's realistic enough that there's probably the chance of tennis elbow if you play long enough. If you enjoyed Wii Sports Tennis but always wished it was "bigger and better" I think you'll really enjoy this game.

Update 6/14/09 - I'm posting a video because it's difficult to see from the trailer what the game is really like, although it looks much better in person. It loses something when you take a picture off the TV and compress it in order to post here, but I'm hoping it'll give you a better idea of the game and some of it's features. (I cut the scenes where I knocked the camera off the tripod with the WiiMotionPlus trying to hit the "ball")