NIDZUMI+

Anyone who has played Virtua Tennis 2 will know that its incredibly addictive considering its basically an advanced version of Pong. To be fair I’m not a tennis fan, I never watch any matches on Tv and I don’t play the real thing but there is something about the Virtua Tennis Series that provides enough replay value to keep you coming back time after time. The series is normally solid on any system but with five years since the last console outing, the expectations are high.

Virtua Tennis 3 plays a lot like Virtua Tennis 2 which in turn played a lot like the first one and don’t take that as a bad thing actually it’s kind of good in a way. Although I applaud developers to change their games from sequel to sequel as long as they add at least something new. So its a shame that Virtua Tennis really doesn’t serve any innovation your way. The career still has you starting off at the bottom and then building up to the number one world ranking spot by competing in singles or doubles tournaments. In between those tourneys you’ll take part in the bizarre mini-games that range from bowling to running away from giant tennis balls while trying to pick up fruit. They make no sense but are ridiculously entertaining and you can play them all in local multi-player.

The career will take up most of your time put once your number one you’ve got nothing else to do. The local multi-player has a fair share of thrills and spills to offer as you get to take part in doubles matches with a friend or you can take them on mano-a-mano in a singles duel to the death. Actually there are no tennis death matches.

The online play is the only real game-play addition to VT3 and what they have came up with works well. There isn’t much waiting for a match and those matches are practically lag free although enjoy the steep learning curve as everyone rips you up at first.

The other main addition is the new improved graphics and they look absolutely phenomenal in full 1080 HD. These incredibly good looking visuals are a nice doubles partner to the new animation sets that are seen in Virtua Tennis 3. Your player moves around as you would think and really make the games realism factor come across even if you are just running after fruit and hitting serves at robots.

Expect your normal Sega style music here though as it seems that Sega’s composers are a bit hit and miss. We have seen tremendous  scores in previous games like Jet Set Radio but  then we get  infected with abysmal sounding rock music that has no place in a Tennis game. You’ll want to turn the music off as soon as possible.

The last time I played a Virtua Tennis game was actually number two in the series on the good old Dreamcast. With nearly five years since that title, going in I kind of expected some vast improvements to this surprisingly addictive tennis simulation. Unfortunately I was away off the money although whats here offers decent value and re-playability.