Sega Nerds

Virtua Tennis 3 hands-on preview

Posted by Chris. Filed under Chris, Microsoft Xbox 360, Preview. Tagged with Virtua Tennis.

Let me first say that I’m a huge Virtua Tennis fan. I’ve been a faithful follower of the series ever since it first released on the Dreamcast. I pride myself in my tennis skills and have slayed everyone of my friends who thought they could unseat me as Virtua Tennis supreme.

Now, let me say this is one of the hardest game demos I’ve ever played. If you like your games tough, you’ll be right at home here. I didn’t win my first game until an hour and a half into it. Yeah, it’s that tough. Actually, the game does get a bit easier the longer you play it and can begin to understand its intracacies, but the AI will still give you a run for your money on your best day.

The Xbox Live demo, which clocks in at about 849MB, only allows you to play single player in one-on-one matches and gives you the option of playing as four different pro tennis players: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Venus Williams and Maria Sharapova.

Each player has his or her own strong suit. Nadal is a fast runner, Williams has powerful strokes, Sharapova is a hard hitter and Federer is supposedly “all around.” Notice I put Federer last? Well, that’s because he sucks ass! Not only is he extremely hard to use against the superior Nadal, I’d even get my ass kicked by Venus when I played against her.

But like I said before, after an hour or so of playing and losing continuously, I finally was able to win my first set with Nadal. About a half hour after that, I was able to beat the girly-man Federer. And it seems that win did something to my confidence level, because I was actually able to hang with all the rest of the players when I used anyone other than you guessed it … Federer.

While the AI is very good in the game, the graphics are probably just as good. The players look pretty darn realistic, and their movements are very fluid and natural. Additionally, the controls are very responsive and feel right, which is very important in any sports game.

I decided to spin up Virtua Tennis 2k2 to compare the two games, and the differences are shocking. Naturally, Virtua Tennis 3 really makes the older-Dreamcast title look its age, but I think it also outshines its rival Top Spin 2, as well.

Like in the previous titles, there are three basic types of shots: top slice, slice and lob. The top spin is a regular shot with a fast-forward moving spin, the slice moves slower and has back-spin and the lob has a high trajectory that is used to shoot the ball over your opponent’s head.

I usually don’t bother with all this mumbo-jumbo, though, because I continually hit the top slice button until my thumb bleeds. It’s all about POWER! Unfortunately, in the previous titles this could win you games rather easily, but you’ll actually have to finesse some shots and vary up your style if you want to be competitive in Virtua Tennis 3. That’s a good thing, though.

One thing that Graham and I both noticed when we first started playing was the gameplay seemed a lot faster than the previous titles. I couldn’t point my finger on whether the players moved more quickly or if the shots were faster. So what would any super-awesome journalist do? I put the two games to a test.

I took a character from Virtua Tennis 3 and Tennis 2k2 that had average running speeds and ran them from one end of the court to the other. My findings were pretty ridiculous interesting to say the least.

In Tennis 2k2, the average time out of five attempts was 2.6 seconds, while the average time in Virtua Tennis 3 was 2.37 seconds. That’s a whopping difference of about .3 seconds. So you see, the players are a tad quicker than in the previous game, but I still need to complete some more studies before I submit my findings to the National Institute of Gaming Scientists, based in Nova Scotia.

In the end, I have to say I really enjoyed VT3, and that’s about all you can really ask from a video game. The gameplay is crisp, smooth and fast, the AI is pretty damn tough and the graphics are simply awesome. And while I didn’t get the chance to play the career mode or the mini-games, they look to be on the right track, too.

It looks like Sega has hit another ace with Virtua Tennis 3.