Virtua Tennis: World Tour sticks to it roots, as a result it delivers the most satisfying handheld tennis game ever mad
takes you to the start menu . You will be taken to the screen in which you will have to choose from the following modes to play in ; Ball games, World Tour, Tournament mode, Quick match , Exhibition mode, Multi-player, Records, and Options .
Quick Match is basically the game chooses your player, your opponents player, and the court and start imminently the match. Also there are only 2 games to be played . This is basically a mode for people who are in a hurry to play . Exhibition mode . Exhibition mode is Quick match, but this time you can choose your player, and your opponents player, Singles or doubles play, Court position,The stadium, Number of games, Difficulty, and if there will be a tiebreaker . Tournament mode will consist of you choosing singles or doubles, and going into 5 rounds in which your main goal is to win what else the tournament . Instead of just staying in specific court, the game will change the stadium every time . Like your first round match will be in the french open ( Roland Garros ), and round 2 will have you at the U.S. open . But remember that each round is more difficult than the other . This mode is the mode that I enjoy the most .
Multi-Player . I haven't played against a friend, so I can't judge it here . Maybe I would if there was freaking online . I was very disappointed that Virtua Tennis : World Tour, did not include an online mode imagine how fun it would have been to play against other people in the world . Yes it would have been sweet . Ball Game's is a collection of 4 different mini-games . Fruit Dash, Blockbuster, Balloon Smash, and Blocker . Each of these mini-games will offer something differently like Blocker will test your volleying skills, while Fruit Dash will test your Rebound . There's plenty of fun to be had with all the mini-games, even equally as fun as actually trying to get the high scores .
World Tour Mode starts you off with the option of creating your own female, and male character . The create-a-character feature is good enough, limited, but good enough . It will let you pick from different faces ( hair, eyes, etc. ), Bodie ( shirt, Height etc. ), Legs ( Shoes, pants etc. ), and the type of racket . After that you will see little icons on the world screen in which you will find different mini-Games to play which will help you on training .
The mini-Games are ; Prize Sniper for Serve training, Alien Force for Volley training, Disk Shooter for Stroke Training, Tank Attack also for Stroke Training,Bulls Eye another one to train for volleys, and lastly Danger Flags for Footwork training . Most of the mini-games are fun to play, but some like Disk Shooter are at times frustrating . The mini-games are very important, because it's the only way in which you are going to be able to atleast win a tournament .
There are also stores in which you will buy Gears for both players like Rackets, Apparel ( Shirt and pants ), Wristbands, and shoes . Here is where you must recruit a partners for doubles, which is unrealistic simply because you have to pay in order to use the partner for 2 months,im sure tennis players do that in real-life . And finally stages . The tournaments in World Tour are very limited to the point that there no fun . There is from 1-3 round, which games are from 2-6 . At the end you will playing the same players over and over again . It would have been cool to make some made believe players, and just add some random ranks to them like in smash court . World Tour mode is sort of a mode, of which you will have to decide in wether you can make it to #1 in the world or not . It could have been better though .
The controls feel solid, and sharp . One of the biggest problems I had with other tennis games, is that I wasn't able to take control
of were my forehands, Backhands went to, but this game holds em steadily . Well I do play Tennis in real-life so yeah ...I can easily predict my opponents shots, because I am that good . No seriously they are hard to predict, but after awhile not that much . However the volleys though were hard to determine the direction they were going to constantly I hit them directly to the right side of the court for the winner, but instead of going there it goes directly into the middle of the court . Other than that I had no problems with the controls . Being the arcade game that virtua tennis is you won't be able to see some results like Overall winners, Point won, Points won on net, Aces, etc. Which really disappoints cause the only thing you can see it are the Smash points, Errors, and Max Serve AVG.
The music isn't good . It's arcadey which doesn't match the game at all, but at the same time you can always turn the Background music off and that helps out . The sound design it's fantastic . There are footstep sounds, which is good, overdone but good .The crowd cheers are helpful, but one of the things I was disappointed with was the fact that there are some shots which are impossible shots to do yet the crowd cheers like they normally do which pisses me off !
The stroke sounds are also good . But hey you can't forget the grunt sounds . Of course you can't it's what makes women's tennis, yes there are included in this game . Overall the sound design is clearly perfect, however the music just doesn't match the game .
Virtua Tennis: World tour looks amazing it's easily the best looking psp sports game . The stadiums look very much close to the real thing . I was really amazed at how good the surfaces looked, especially clay . I was so impressed at how the character animations on the moves looked . It looked very real when the players do forehands, and backhands that I was very amazed with . Facial excretions are solid, and the players themselves
look very close to the real thing .
Overall: Tennis fan or no tennis fan virtua tennis is a very satisfying game to even people whom don't even like tennis . It easily is the best sports game out right now for any handheld system .