The last truly great console tennis game was Wimbledon Tennis for the Sega Genesis. While it may have taken a couple of generations of consoles, Sega has once again struck pay dirt with Virtua Tennis. Based on its arcade counterpart, the controls are very easy to pick up and execute. VT plays surprisingly like previously mentioned Wimbledon Tennis, and in all of the right ways.

The controls are kept simple, but the amount of strategy involved is deep. Depending upon which character you are playing against, hugging the base line or rushing the net may be advantageous. Of course, you always want to play to your character’s strong points, be it his backhand or a blazing serve. The gameplay does have a few quirks like the fact that aces are almost impossible to hit and doubling back to hit a missed volley is equally unfeasible. The AI also tends to rely on cheating at the higher difficulty levels by knowing exactly where you plan to hit the ball.

When bringing this arcade title to Dreamcast, Sega wisely added a “Championship Mode.” This involves various matches and skill challenges of progressive difficulty. Conquering these allow you to unlock new outfits, courts, and players. Speaking of players, VT offers a very limited number of actual tennis pros, all of which are male. You begin with just 8 players and while you do unlock more, it made us feel odd to be ranked 142nd when we kept playing the same pool of 16 or so players.

The graphics are beautiful enough to assure that it does the Dreamcast sports game legacy proud and the animations are hauntingly lifelike. Don’t let the “arcade” tag fool you, Virtua Tennis offers the best tennis action in years.

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9/10

Buy This Game
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Reviewed By
Matt