Review: Virtua Tennis 4

Back in business

It took a good four years before the Virtua Tennis series continued, if we look away from the Virtua Tennis 2009 game. The game is still the ace of Tennis games and it doesn’t take long time before we start to recognize the same old. Not much new has been added, but there is something to take a look at.

You know who this is: Close up views of the players are amazing. Roger Federer it is.

When starting a career mode with your tennis player, you start from scratch with an inexperienced player. The map is no longer more and has been replaced with something that looks like a game board. In good old Virtua tennis style you build your players skills and experience in mini games such as taking penalty shots with a football, breaking plates, running around and catching eggs and shooting balloons. After a year or two in the game (About couple of hours) this gets a little boring and then theres nothing much to do except playing exhibition matches or matches online.

Penalty shootout: One of the mini games that are new in Virtua Tennis 4. Play tennis with footballs.

Game: The player models keeps coming to you in a fantastic way.

If you take a look at the tennis matches, it is clearly the best tennis game out there (Not many competitors though) The matches runs well and the game progresses naturally. It also has a lot of stars and the graphics look amazing at close range, Roger Federer actually looks a lot more like him in this game than in real life. The sound is horrible as usual and I feels like were back to the 90’s with the typical Japanese arcade game sounds and music, but at the end, it’s absolutely worth a couple of hours of gaming.

Double it up: If you find it hard by yourself, let the CPU assist you.

Gamescore

Virtua Tennis 4 (2011)

Graphics:  One of the greatest graphical sport games I guess. Close up of the players makes you think you’re actually at a tennis game. 9/10

Audio: The good things first. The game sounds like a tennis game when you play matches. The music in this game: Awful! Turn off the music, the game is actually a lot better then!. 3/10

Gameplay: Tennis is tennis, one match is never like the other, but very similar. Fun for a while of course. Gets boring after one or two seasons in career mode. 7/10

Controls: Just like last year’s tennis game, pretty good. One problem can be that players don’t always react the way you want them to, but this does not happen often. 8/10

Overall Score: Virtua Tennis doesn’t disappoint me, it was what I expected. It would have been fun to see the game grow a little until the next one, as it feels pretty much as the same game as the last years. Several problems with the games save game function have been reported and SEGA newly dropped a patch for the game. The graphics is the most positive thing in the game and the gameplay is also fun for a while. It’s worth a try. 6/10