It's back, it's that time again - time for the next legendary Sega pick up and play tennis game. The first sequel for two years (and the first numbered sequel since Virtua Tennis 3), Virtua Tennis 4 delivers pretty much what you expect - tennis action thats easy to take part in, whilst still being annoyingly hard to master.
With Virtua Tennis 3 being so damn near to perfection in its field (Virtua Tennis 2009 did introduce one or two useful things, but was otherwise an abhorration on the family name), Sega once again was lucky enough to be in a situation where only the smallest changes need to be made. And they haven't tinkered all that much.
Back in the hands of Sega's AM3 development team (responsible for the original arcade versions as well as VT3) the game has gone through a process of refinement, with small changes made here and there. In fact, one might argue that there is not a huge amount here to warrant a purchase over VT3 (especially on the XBox360, where VT3 was proted from the arcade version with online gaming in place). But all the small tweaks that make the game run that much smoother and that little less annoying and the obligatory wholesale removal of the classic minigames are overshadowed by one big change this year - the new World Tour Mode.
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WORLD TOUR MODE
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Gone is the World Tour of old - the calendar based, almost real life mimicry of old. No more week to week scheduling, using energy drinks to keep your health up and no more training as and when you want. It has been replaced by the new 'board game' style tour, where your movement is based on what you can buy and what you are randomly given by your 'manager', whose general uselessness is the only holdover from the old system. This new system works on a four year 'varying region' setup - Year One you'll be in South East Asia and finish in Australia for the Australian Open, Year Two will see you head to North Africa and South Europe, finishing at the French Open, Year 3 sees you finish up the rest of Europe, finishing up at Sega's traditional Wimbledon kncok off, whilst Year Four sees you jet the Atlantic and finish the Year at the US Open.
Everything is now based on collectiong stars for star power - something achieved from charity work, fan work, winning tournements, exhibition matches and winning end of season awards. Whilst you can never miss the big four tournements (if you don't make it up to their required star level you'll simply have to go through the qualification rounds too), you can miss the smaller tournements by a virtue of not having enough stars - a major annoyance because your movement decisions are not within your control (you are after all, bound by the tickets you're given) and it's not unusual to have all three of your movement tickets be the same.
Injuries, resting and training all now have their own spaces on the 4 season board game, so the real challenge of the World Tour is now balancing skill improvement with rest and earning stars - almost impossible at some points.
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MINI GAMES
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As with every Virtua Tennis game, there are some all new mini games, designed to make training interesting for you. The only game saved from VT3 is pin crusher, the serving to knock down pins, 10 pin bowling style, favourite. On the serving front it has been joined by a football game (serving footballs in a freekick situation past a keeper and wall) whilst other new games include coin game (collect coins from around the court whilst playing a point against someone), chicken game (round around hatching eggs and leading the chicks to mother hens, whilst avoiding tennis balls being served at you), wind game (get as long a rally as you can whilst the wind on the court blows the ball here there and everywhere), a clay pigeon game (return balls to smash clay piugeons on a conveyor moving across the screen) and card game (returning balls to hit a wall of 6 cards, flipping one over, hoping to create a hand).
Despite the games all being much of a muchness (and very similar in tone to previous mini games) they do the job very nicely and are certainly as good as is expected, providing hours of non competitive fun.
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VT4 ROUND UP: GOOD POINTS
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- Still very fun to play
- Haven't messed with a winning formula
- Tweaks and small changes have made a fun game really enjoyable
- New mini games keep things fresh
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VT4 ROUNDUP: BAD POINTS
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- Character behaviour on court can sometimes still be not what you want
- Although not tested by myself, the Move and Kinect support isn't good (especially when you cant move the character using the Move Navigator)
- New World Tour Mode is more annoying (though less reptitive) than prebious World Tours
Verdict: 8.5/10
