sharapova-nadal-tennisOne of the highlights of my life is receiving videogames in the mail. The thrill of ripping open the packaging like ‘twas Christmas morning, holding the case in your hands for the very first time like a newborn child, and then inserting the game into the corresponding console and feeling that rush as the game fires up for the first time ever. All of a sudden, the game world you’ve been dreaming about for months appears, unfolds before your very eyes, and what was once dream is now reality. You dive headfirst into this incredible new virtual experience, crossing things off your ‘things to try when the game arrives’ list, and loving every minute of it while also feeling a sense of childlike joy with every new discovery.

But of course, I have a moral obligation to The Nintendo Basement, so eventually I had to set aside Monster Hunter Freedom Unite (for Sony PSP) and have a go at the other game that arrived in the mail that day- Virtua Tennis 2009 for the Wii.

I’ve made it clear to everyone within earshot that I despise Grand Slam Tennis, EA’s ‘me first’ attempt to utilise Wii MotionPlus. I won’t repeat what I’ve already said (there’s a detailed blog entry about it if you’re really curious), but in summary I felt that the control system was extremely poor, even inferior to Wii Sports tennis in many respects (ie. having to press buttons for different shots), and was basically a demonstration of EA failing to live up to promises they’d made earlier. Virtua Tennis 2009 has been savaged by critics for its own poor attempt to utilise Wii MotionPlus, so naturally I was eager to compare the games and see for myself how they stacked up.

Virtua Tennis 2009 didn’t get off to a very good start. I went straight to practice mode and noticed that the coach was Tim Henman. Excuse me? I’m on a quest to be the best damn tennis player in the world, not some middle-of-the-road underachiever! I actually felt like I would do better if I skipped Henman’s tutelage and went straight into the game, but seeing as this is a Wii MotionPlus game, I wanted to test all the nuances of the controls so I could judge them fairly.

And I have to be honest, the early signs were good. For one, the automatic player movement seemed much better than in Grand Slam Tennis. On top of that, all of the shot controls were mapped to Wiimote movements instead of having to use buttons to differentiate between lobs and drop shots LIKE IN SOME WII MOTIONPLUS GAMES THAT SHALL GO UNNAMED, GRAND SLAM TENNIS. Speaking of swings, I occasionally noticed that, while your character would have a set swing animation, the ball didn’t actually fly across the court until you completed your controller swing. Graphically, it looked cheap, but gameplay-wise, it was promising. On top of that, while in training I tried all of the ‘control glitches’ from Grand Slam Tennis and they resulted in non-swings. Could this game come through and provide that great tennis experience I was looking for?

Pretty sure that's a foot fault mate.

Sadly, no. The training was all a pre-set façade in order to trick you into thinking the game had potential before revealing its true, crappy nature. Actually, I’m getting a bit ahead of myself- this realisation occurred during training, when I realised you had barely any control over your shots. Hey, Grand Slam Tennis may suck, but at least you can kinda aim where the ball goes if you compensate enough for the clunky controls. No such luck in Virtua Tennis. Okay, imagine having to do a forehand, as a right hander, in tennis. You know how swinging early makes the ball go to the left, late makes it go right, and in between makes it go in between? This basic rule of tennis physics is thrown right out the window here. In forehand training, I purposely swung early and the ball went to the left. I swung EARLIER and the ball flew off to the right. I did the same swing three times in a row, with the exact same timing, and watched in horror as the ball went left, middle, and right, and not even in that order. Also, the game utterly fails to differentiate between a regular forehand, a slice, and anything else for that matter. You can do a really slow swing for a drop shot, but an even slower swing will unleash a cracking forehand. And even though the game told me to ‘swing high’ for a lob, it doesn’t seem to work at all. Seriously, you can unleash dragon punches with the Wiimote until your shoulder pops out and the ball’s trajectory will remain as low as the level of anticipation for the Wii Vitality Sensor.

How dare you put me in this game!

But enough of Tim Henman’s useless training, maybe the proper game will pull a surprise and actually be good. Maybe, by some miracle, everything will come together in the proper game for a fun and fluid tennis experience. After all, training seemed to limit the controls so that you could only pull off the required shot for that lesson, instead of giving you the freedom to hit the ball wherever you wanted, however you wanted. Would it all come together when you were given the freedom to do so? To explain to you whether it did or not, let me explain to you those ‘control glitches’ (the ones that resulted in non-swings in training) from Grand Slam Tennis that I tested earlier, and whether they worked in a proper game of Virtua Tennis 2009.

Your player’s orientation doesn’t matter, you can swing a forehand or backhand and it will result in a good shot: Check.

If you bring the racquet back too fast (ie. anything faster than ‘really slow’), that will register as a shot: Check.

You can play the game well by pointing the Wiimote at the screen and waggling: A BIG FAT CHECK.

After attempting to play the game normally (and shot placement was still totally random), I tried waggling and watched as Federer engaged in a long rally with his opponent and won. WON! This is the biggest problem with these tennis games- they have Wii MotionPlus and they claim it’s going to get you off the couch and force you to swing for real. Unfortunately, what we get instead is some kind of MadWorld-esque Quick-Time Event, where you just shake the controller as hard as you can and watch as your character beats down on your opponent in a predetermined series of actions. This is not fun. This not a realistic approximation of tennis, by any means. In fact, if you watch a real game of tennis and shake the TV remote around, it will be an almost perfect recreation of Virtua Tennis 2009- I say ‘almost’, because this version would have better graphics and more interactivity.

Great piece of waggling from Nadal!

Just for the sake of comparison, I fired up Wii Sports and had a go at tennis, just to see if any progress, any at all, had been made over time. I was shocked to discover that, while Wii Sports tennis contains a lot of the problems of these current tennis games, it also contains a lot of subtle improvements. For one, it does a much better job of differentiating between different shots. For two, if you want to place your shot, you have to swing it properly. Seriously, I tried a lob forehand when my Mii was going for a backhand and it just sprayed out of bounds. I tried a lob backhand when my character was going for a backhand and it worked, every time! Late shots go where they’re supposed to, early shots do the same, and overall the whole thing is fun and playable.

Which leads me to the big question: Why? Why the hell are we expected to pay the cost of a full priced Wii game, plus an extra $30 for the Wii MotionPlus accessory (Wii CostPlus?), for something that was done better in a free game that’s almost three years old and had no extra accessories to work with? Why, I ask? Then again, when you’re dealing with the company that thought it was a good idea to make Sonic The Hedgehog transform into a werewolf to the tune of Bowling For Soup, ‘why’ is probably a futile question to be asking.

If you want a tennis game on Wii, stick with Wii Sports. If you want a Virtua Tennis game, buy one on another system with good ol’ button controls that actually do what they’re supposed to do. If you want a game that demonstrates the true potential of Wii MotionPlus, save your pennies for Wii Sports Resort and Red Steel 2. Virtua Tennis 2009 is a useless game that fails at everything it attempts and ends up being nothing to nobody. Do not buy it for yourself, do not buy it from the bargain bin, and especially do not buy it for a relative, because it’s flat-out awful. Even El Tigre on the DS was better than this crap.

By Mr_M

Graphics: B-

If you’ve played a Virtua Tennis game before, you know what to expect.

Sound: B-

Does the job I suppose.

Gameplay: E-

There are a couple of things that it does better than Grand Slam Tennis, cancelled out by a couple of things that it does worse. Shot placement seems totally random, and all of the problems that were present in Wii Sports still haven’t been fixed.

Overall: F

No matter who you are, this game will not appeal to you.