Xbox 360 Review: Virtua Tennis 2009

Tennis is a game of precision, power and intense concentration. Knowing where your opponent will hit a small green ball next, as you cover an area 39 feet long and 27 feet wide, can be a daunting experience. Surprisingly, none of this is taken into account in Virtua Tennis 2009 for the Xbox 360. Virtua Tennis is the latest installment in the Virtua Tennis franchise developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sega. Its predecessor, Virtua Tennis 3, grabbed our attention with its career mode, whimsical-cartoony mini-games, clean graphics and online play. All of these features in Virtua Tennis 2009 will give you a total 180-degree feeling from your impression of them in VT3. The reason is simple. Why should you pay fifty dollars plus tax on a game you already played if nothing has been done to upgrade the game? Unlike Madden, where the developers try to make the game more complex year-over-year, Virtua Tennis does nothing to reinvent the wheel. In fact, Virtua Tennis chips away at the wheel with each passing hour.

You begin your VT tour in career mode. First you’ll need to create a character. There are several pre-existing templates to choose from. But, as you slowly try to modify your character more and more, you will quickly notice that something is not quite right with the customization. For example, no matter what complexion you choose you will feel like you’re one of the undead in HBO’s “True Blood.” Then as you try to modify your cheeks, brow, and other facial features, you will notice that your character looks even more gruesome. If this was a zombie game, I’d be totally psyched. But, in a game toting the Virtual flag, it would seem that human features should be more prevalent than those of the undead.

After you have finished creating your character you go to the World map, which a 3D Earth model, to choose your home country. You can reasonably select any country in the world as your home. This is an important feature of the game. As you tour the world, competing in one of the many tournaments or mini-games, you will slowly diminish your stamina. Eventually, you will need to return home to rest. You can pay $300 for a quick fix energy drink, or you can just kick back for a week of free rest.

Gamers start at the bottom of the Tennis circuit food chain, and will have to slowly work their way up through several tournaments, mini-games or online play. Unfortunately, only one out of these three things will provide you with any semblance of fun: the mini-games. The single-player games are sluggish and overwhelmingly easy. You have three types of shots: top spins, lobs and slices. Gamers will never really feel challenged as they play. The difficulty is simply not there. You can get through most matches by pressing one button. The intensity of being in a fast paced tennis match isn’t present either. Characters move around sluggishly. Your opponents fall for the same shot each time. I would have been impressed if Sumo Digital had incorporated more use of the thumbstick into the design, so that you can direct your swings more. If you’re willing to stick with the game the difficulty will slowly begin to increase several hours into tournament play, but the initial monotony may Jedi-push you away from continued play.

The online-play is a severe strike against VT 2009. In theory, you will find climbing up the tennis rank ladder more entertaining by facing off against human opponents online. This is not the case. VT 2009 suffers from severe lag. The ball skips around and disappears as you play. Balls may double bounce, but will still be returned. And, occasionally ball movement will just freeze. It’s all a frustrating experience.

As your ranking grows so do your stats, but the upgrades here don’t really factor into the game much. I also would have appreciated picking up a sponsorship to cover the cost of my energy drinks after dominating countless single player games.

The mini-games are really what VT 2009 is all about. There are several mini-games to play from bashing blocks, to facing off against your favorite jungle creatures, to sinking pirate ships, and of course playing pool with a racket. Initially, you start off on level one difficulty, and you’ll have to keep playing to move up through eight difficulty levels. Which is worth it for the mini-games. Again, I don’t get how you brandish the title of Virtual Tennis, and the best part of the game isn’t the actual tennis play, but playing one of many wacky mini-games, involving a racket and ball. Unfortunately, the fun times you have playing mini-games will be robbed by long loading times after each game and knowledge that you will, at some point, have to return to single player match.

The visuals are bright and engaging, especially on the mini-games, but the actual character models lack any real definition. This is a next-gen title; the time should have been invested into at least creating more detailed character models. The music was just an oversight on the part of Sumo Digital. The matches have a bland musical backdrop with no true sports casting commentary.

Virtua Tennis 2009 isn’t the best tennis game you’ll ever play - not by a long shot. So, far Tennis still has yet to have a definitive simulation title. Virtua Tennis 3 was a step in the right direction. But, Virtua Tennis 2009 is the same game with some clunky mechanics and appalling online play. VT 2009 feels like several steps backward from its predecessor that was released two years prior.