Virtua Tennis 2009 [Nintendo Wii]

Posted August 15, 2009 by maceman in Featured, Featured Home, Reviews, Wii.

Reviewed on the Nintendo Wii-

Virtua Tennis 2009 is one of the first games to use the new Wii Motion Plus controller. The Motion Plus makes the motion controls more sensitive with no lag to give the game a more realistic feel. It is highly recommended that you play the game with this add-on accessory, however you can still play the game without it. There are 25 world-renowned players to choose from and heaps of options to play as either a single player, with up to four players locally or even online multiplayer over the Nintendo network against other Virtua Tennis players from around the world.

The Wii obviously doesn’t have the graphical capabilities of its PS3 and Xbox 360 counterparts but the graphics here are still decent and what it lacks in graphical grunt it makes up for in gameplay. There is also the encouragement to get your butt off the couch and swing your Wiimote like a tennis racket instead of pressing buttons, trying not to take off the heads of the other players in the room in the process. Also, as you need to raise the remote in the air to serve, watch out for any low hanging glass light shades like mine, which is now just a light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

To help angle your shots there is an on screen visual assist bar and this can come in handy when you are first getting the hang of things to help angle the ball correctly, especially while serving. It did appear at times to be slightly innacurate however as you are given faults even when you appear to have served when the line on the bar is in the correct position. Its best not to rely on the bar too much, as you can end up missing return shots due to spending too much time trying to line up the perfect shot. The Visual assist bar can be disabled so it is up to you whether to use it or not.

There are numerous game modes present in Virtua Tennis with the prominent ones being Arcade and World Tour. In Arcade you play five matches to take the Arcade trophy at the end but the main single player game is the much more lengthy career World Tour mode. In this mode you are able to customize all aspects of your player including hair, face, body and posture to take on the animated versions of the world’s best players as you make you way up the ranks in order to become the best in the world.

In World Tour you do not play matches one after the other, rather they become available on the calendar and there are weeks where there are no matches at all. This seems a bit of a weird way to organize the competition but it is not a major issue and has been seen in previous titles. You can use these weeks to take time out to rest and rejuvenate your stamina. Using the money you earn from the competitions you can also replenish stamina by drinking an energy drink, but at $300 each they are a bit steep on the hip pocket. The alternative is a tropical holiday for $1000, which is good value providing you do not buy energy drinks while you are there.

There are also 12 mini-games to play during the tornament-less weeks, which improve your attributes and make for some amusing extra fun in the process. The variety of games on offer here are excellent and although they all have an aspect of tennis included they are a bit of a mish-mash of other games as well. The development team obviously did not think tennis was enough so they added games where the court turns into an oversized pool table and the tennis ball turns into the cue ball or in Pin Crusher the tennis ball is transformed into a bowling ball to play a bit of cross tennis en-pin bowling.

Other bizarre mini-games include one in which you must stop evil ball launching Alien machines from advancing towards the net line by returning their balls back at them to knock them flying. Or Pirate Wars when you return the balls that Pirate Ships shoot towards you in order to try to sink them, having to avoid the canon balls when these are shot out. In short, there are a mix of new and old mini-games that provide a welcome break from the stresses of the main tournaments.

The Multiplayer games allow you and three others to compete in singles or double matches against each other or on opposing teams with either a quick single match in Exhibition mode or in quarter, semi and finals in Tournament mode. You can position your players on the court before playing and move your player back, forwards or left and right with the control pad during play. This gives you more manual control than the Wii Sports Tennis, but the players automatically move towards the ball as well so you do not have to be continually using the control pad during play.

Unfortunately, there is no split screen option so if playing against someone rather than being on the same team, you can be placed on the opposite side of the court and the controls are reversed. This makes it difficult to coordinate front or back swings and it can become a bit disorientating. The score bar in the top left corner of the screen also tends to get in the way of your player as well which is annoying.

In terms of the online multiplayer, I could never find anyone online using the option in the main menu. In order to find online games and people to play with I had to go through the World tour mode and select the online games on the globe. While playing online I found that it suffered from a bit of lag. It sometimes it looked like they had hit the ball after it had already gone passed them or even after a double bounce. These issues are minimal though and if you are aware of them it is still enjoyable and it did not really take that much away from the overall online experience. I was just happy that the online option was available at all on a Wii game, though more games are starting to be released with this option.

Overall, this is an excellent tennis game with heaps of options for both single and multiple players with the mini-games giving it broad appeal and plenty of replay value. The Wii Motion Plus controls do take a while to get the hang of especially if you have had the console for a while and are accustomed to the slight lag of the controls from previous tennis games, but they do make the entire game that much more enjoyable.

Tagged as Sega, Virtua Tennis 2009, Virtua Tennis 2009 Wii, Virtua Tennis Wii