Gamernode: Reviews - Virtua Tennis 3

Virtua Tennis 3

• Virtua Tennis 3
• Xbox 360
• Sega-AM2
• Sega
• March 20th, 2007

Not exactly one of the blockbusters of the season, The Virtua Tennis series keeps sliding in under the radar and into the hands of those who know better. More than a simple tennis game, yet not exactly mind blowing in concept. This is one of those games that's truly tough to call. Unless, of course, you're a die-hard tennis fan -- then by all means jump on the bandwagon with no reservations. I have to admit, I wasn't particularly jazzed about the concept of a new tennis game, but I was surprised. I'm certainly not the aforementioned, die-hard tennis fan, so I'll try to judge this for those of us who wouldn't get this game regardless of how it is.

In a mix of wacky fun vs. odd realism, Virtua Tennis 3 takes a slightly more high-res cartoony look. They're not exactly shooting for realism here. It's reminiscent of car games where they couldn't get the licensing, so they made it feel more "arcadey" and made up the cars, except in this one they DO have real tennis stars, so it's an odd feeling, like seeing a popular actor as a cartoon. Aside from the odd styling for real people, the graphics are pretty sharp. The people are clear and well-rendered, the colors are rich and the style is unique. There are a few clipping issues and some truly awful hair choices in the character creation, but I think that hardcore graphics are not the main concern of Virtua Tennis players everywhere.

When you first fire up VT3 you are given the option to create a player. This is where my esteem took a dive, as Tony Hawk it ain't. The creation screen is extremely limited and you essentially have the abilities to make cute little tennis clones that range between medium and tall, skinny and super skinny. Throw in a half dozen bad haircuts and some useless facial manipulation and you've got your own bland generic player! As you may have guessed, I was a little disappointed on this front.

Then you're off and running, given the chance to play online, multiplayer, single match or World Tournament. The obvious single player choice is world tournament, where you start off on a globe-styled map with just a home, tennis school and a few mini games. You have to build up your stats which you can do through games or tennis school, learn the basics of the gameplay, and then eventually compete in matches. Through all of this you have to watch your 'stamina' bar, which is a cheap tactic to make the game seem more real. After a few games/matches you'll see your stamina get pretty low. At this point you can continue to play (as opposed to going home and 'resting'), which doesn't seem to affect you in the least except after the match you have a much higher chance of injury. Being insured consists of a line of text saying that you have anything from tennis elbow to a full blown broken femur (ouch!); you have to "wait" several weeks for this to heal, which is simply as many button pushes as there are weeks. You lose stat points from some of this, but otherwise it's a completely pointless exercise that seems to have no relevance whatsoever to the game or anything else.

As one of my coworkers briefly described it, Virtua Tennis is essentially "Pong with People," and in a sense this is true. If you can get near where the ball is landing and mash a button, you're pretty much golden. It's actually more fun than it sounds, but in the more advanced matches you'll find that it really comes down to a grueling endurance match where you simply return the ball as many times as you can and wait for the computer to make a mistake. Some shots are almost 100 percent guaranteed not to work, and the aiming system is a bit loose and funky. The stats help considerably with all of this however, because you get better at power, aiming, running, turning, etc. It's a pretty visceral difference when you power serve like a canon and run like a track star.

So the main game isn't all that, but here's the saving grace: Mini-Games. They ROCK. The mini games are vast and varied, and each has an increased difficulty level to continue the challenge. Most of the games from earlier iterations are gone, replaced with even more ridiculous and funnier new ones. "Avalanche" has you dodging gigantic tennis balls while running to catch oversized fruit for points. There's also tennis oriented versions of bowling, space invaders, number games, as well as tests of speed, reflexes, aiming, and agility. They seem to go on forever, as every few games will unlock another one and before you know it there's dozens to choose from. The ONLY complaint I have about the mini games is that it almost makes it seem like a party game, but there's no party mode. You are playing with your one character whose stats increase every game. So if you care in the least about developing your own character, you can't just pass around the controller. The flipside to this of course is that you CAN make all your friends play and boost your stats sky high. To each their own.

The sound in VT3 is pretty middle ground. The thwack of the ball hitting your racket and the squeak of your shoes on a clay court are all perfect, and as crisp and dead on as you could ever hope for it to be. However, the dull cheering of the fake crowd and upbeat but cheesy soundtrack is very arcade feeling. To be fair, I can't imagine how you plan the soundtrack for a game that's essentially arcade tennis, so they probably did the best they could, and its fine -- it just doesn't stand out in any way.

You'll find the controls are sluggish and in the mini games, they don't always work like you'd want them to. Aiming is derived from how long you hold the button to set up the shot, but the accuracy varies wildly depending on your stats. It feels like the game doesn't work as well as it should until your character becomes uber-good; this is probably much the same as in real life. Still I find it annoying that your early character can't hit a barn while your high end one can probably become a tennis assassin.

I think arcade tennis really sums up the game as a whole. It's got real players, but they're not relevant to their actual skills. The menus and options are quick and at a minimum; the focus is really on the game itself and the mini games. It's easy for anyone to pick up and master this game, and the mini games truly kick ass. You'll find yourself bored pretty early on with the single player version, but the multiplayer and Xbox LIVE support fills that gap nicely. Playing against internet opponents is fun as long as you can talk trash while you bring it, and with the simplicity of the general gameplay most people will be able to bring it fairly soon. All in all, this isn't a game that's only for tennis fans, as I can't imagine that's a large enough group to justify a long running series. I think that's a good thing, because I'm not really a tennis fan, but I enjoyed it anyway, despite the faults.

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