Virtua Tennis is a good tennis simulation, but a lack of online multiplayer leaves little incentive to return to it.
Gameplay wise, it's fine, as far as tennis simulations go. It's got a few minigame modes, that aren't actually all that great after your first two goes, the lack of responsiveness for the controls actually makes you view the minigames as a hindrance instead of a different way to play the game.
What's more frustrating is that you have to complete these minigames just to level up, however the ranking system, however intuitive, doesn't take into account incompetent ai. For example, you may exceed at forehand and havea terrible back hand, thats not because you are awful with your backhand in the game. It's because every shot played to you will always be on your forehand side regardless of where you are.
The other thing that becomes irksome is the sicckeninly stupid ai, when you firs start, in an attempt to keep things fair, while you lack a powerful or accurate shot, sega make the ai drastically stupid. What is even more frustrating is that as soon as you gain a meagre bar of talent, sega ups the difficulty a ridiculous amount.
This means you go from "haha look at the pathetic ai actually moving for a ball when it's already bounced twice" to "*"&£^$*%*& when the hell did i start playing against a combination between the world's strongest hitter and road runner? "
Another dissapointing fact, is that Virtua tennis lacks online play, meaning that the only time you'd ever really go on it is when you have mates around, and while this can be ok, it just means at it's current price, i wouldn't reccomend it, simply because you'd play it so litlle, from the sickeningly stupid ai to the boring minigames.
The graphics are fairly good, but honestly what games don't look good these days on the next gen consoles? However everything has this weird shiny rubber look about it. The courts do well to simulate the effects of the ball, ball marks on the court remain there throughout the game, the characters animate nicely, however the models themselves look like they have a permanent sheen of sweat upon there foreheads, which i'm not sure if it was a bad design or sega's actual attempt to make everything tennis stars do seem laborious to the likes of pete sampras or roger federer.
In summary, it's ok for a party game, but not a game i'd reccomend to anyone, except those i hate and tennis enthusiasts. (which comes under the same category ) :D The graphics are fairly good, but a lack of online multiplayer just makes this game not worth the money you shell out for it. If you still insist on getting it, rent it instead, it'll save you money, and it'll stop giving sega hope , maybe now they'll stop with both terrible sonic adventures and mediocre sports sims....
peace out
dan