Video game tennis never struck me as much fun. Sure, I’ve played enough of it to have gotten some enjoyment out of it, but only as rentals or in mini-games. I’ve never been dramatically struck by a tennis game, and I’ve never said, “By mercy, I must own that tennis game!” So perhaps I’m not the right person to review the N-Gage’s edition of Virtua Tennis. But hey, I’ve got the shot; I’m taking it.
Of course, you do have the standard options for a tennis game. You can play a single “exhibition” match, a series of matches called “World Tour,” and of course a head to head match. This tennis game doesn’t add any wrinkles, but it does have the modes you need out of any sports game. It’s not like you can have a franchise mode in tennis, after all.
So you’ve chosen how you want to smack around yellow balls. Now it’s time to choose your player. You have a choice of 8, all of which seem vaguely like, but not quite, actual tennis players. I’m not sure why this is, since in the arcade version, they actually put real tennis players within the game. I don’t know, maybe the real players didn’t want to be associated with the N-Gage.
Like with all sports games, the control scheme is primary, perhaps more so than in any other genre. Sadly, this is where this game performs the worst. While it is nice that you cannot miss the serve (all you do is lock in the power of the serve), in order to hit the return you will have to immediately hit the button to dash down the other side of the court. If you don’t, you have absolutely no hope of reaching the return. And if your opponent should not return at the opposite corner? Well, you can’t just cover yourself. You have to gamble that you know which way the ball will bounce. You will see plenty of return aces against you while you serve.
And when you’re on return? You have to hit the lob or slice button at precisely the right time, or you will be smacked with a service ace. It’s not like other tennis games, in which you have a swing of a few seconds, and the timing of your swing determines the type of return. Your timing must be precise.
Of course, as you can expect, the computer’s timing is absolutely impeccable. The computer will always get into position to return serves, can place the ball at will even on the lightest difficulty, and can always hit the ball with full power. I don’t know exactly what skill level they’re placing this game for, but even the easiest difficulty level is vastly more difficult than your average tennis game. It’s clearly built for those people who already are on top of their game.
Graphically, the game is rather solid. The colors are bright and don’t bleed at all, and while the characters themselves are pretty small, they’re decently articulated. When you dive to smack the ball, it actually is smoothly animated and looks much like when you’re in the cheap seats and watching someone make a dramatic dive to save the point. The only problem you might have is that the ball is white, and not yellow, but it does have a drop shadow, so you can always tell it from the lines on the court.
The game’s sound is not exactly spectacular, but I’m not totally offended by it. However, tennis is not the kind of game that really should have music playing during the game. Really, for the proper tennis feel, you should just turn the music off and listen to the sound effects. It would have been better if they included more grunts during the game (nobody grunts like a tennis player in the midst of a match), but the sounds of the ball smacking are pretty nice and the game doesn’t disappoint in this regard.
I imagine that fans of tennis games will love this, the challenge that the game presents and its solid presentation, beyond the graphics. However, anyone that isn’t a die-hard tennis fan will quickly get frustrated with the insane difficulty level. Nothing makes tennis inaccessible to the common fan like a game like this, which just frustrates newcomers. This is not the kind of game that should be a launch title – save this for when there are enough people that own the system to justify a niche title like this.
