Virtua Tennis World Tour

I purchased this game because I enjoy tennis and figured I would probably enjoy a tennis game. The World Tour portion of the game is probably the most fun part of owning the game.

The World Tour - The Meat and Potatos of Single Player

Creating a player for the World Tour isn't as indepth as I would've liked, but it does a good enough job. You create both a male and a female character and can switch between the two to raise their stats. To raise your stats you must play mini games that increase your skills in serving, volleying, footwork, etc. You gain experience for the minigames and, depending on what skills you used more over the course of the game, your skills go up. Completed challenges give multipliers to the experience so it behooves you to win.

To raise money, you can play in tournaments. You start ranked last at 300 and then slowly make your way up as you win tournaments. Tournaments are much quicker than real life tournaments (thankfully). Most usually consist of a few "best 2 out of 3" matches. Doubles tournaments require you to spend your winnings on contracts and pairing up with some of the top tennis players. The computer controlled players actually did way better than me... which was kind of disconcerting.

The game was very entertaining from a tennis fan's point of view though there were two issues that I had with the game that keep it from getting that last star.

General Gameplay Issues

The first issue I had was the overall sluggishness of the interface. There was constant loading in every part of the game. Starting from the create a player interface to the world map where you choose what to do. And it just slowed down the process. It would've been nice if failed attempts at minigames would give you a prompt to see if you wanted to try it again instead of reloading the world map and having to reload the levels again. Though the fact that i would play the same minigame over 10 times in a row should show how addictive it can become. The slowness may be attributed to the firmware version 1.52 that i had installed (ver. 2.00+ is out), and I don't have another PSP to try the game out on.

The second minor issue I had was with the minigames. True, they're fun and addictive, but they don't really change much as the game continues. The levels remain the same. They just add a few more objectives and keep the time limits the same. Some just seemed extremely difficult given the lack of control you have in the beginning.. but they were still keeping me coming back for more so I suppose the issue isn't as big a deal. But the difficulty coupled with the loading times were an annoyance worth mentioning.

Conclusion

I recommend the purchase to anybody wanting a decent tennis game to play on the go (The tiny ball on the screen sometimes gets hard to track). Otherwise you'd probably be better off buying a console version of Top Spin (better graphics and faster loading).

I played tennis in high school and college. I own every handheld system tennis game there is. This is the best. Here's why.

Incredible ball control. For me, it's about making the shots. A drop when your opponent is on the baseline. hammering it deep to the right corner over and over and then whipping it to the far left. serve and volley. amazing angles. I can do it all on this psp game.

Graphics, graphics, graphics. Must be seen. BY FAR the best on a handheld system. Plus 2 player views. Overhead and on-court.

opponent skill and AI. level your player to the max, set the computer opponent to very hard and have a ball. In all the months of play, I have only served 2 aces!

Easy to save at any point. If I have to turn off in the middle of a point, the system usually comes on to that point. Great on the plane.

Strong minigames.

If you are a big fan of tennis and especially if you are a former competitive player - Buy this game.

Overall the game plays well with very nice graphics and sound. Being a tennis player, I appreciate the variety of shots you can make, though making a certain shot can be 'hit or miss' at times.

There are several modes including quick game, exhibition, tournament or world tour. There are also a number of different surfaces including carpet, hard court, clay and grass and venues, including Tokyo, Melbourne, London and the USA.

One downside for me though is, even though I've created a custom player in World Tour mode, I still haven't been able to build up enough skill to actually play in any of the tournaments - the mini games to improve your skill seem quite difficult. You need to improve your skill so that your custom player can take part in the world tour mode.

Overall it's a pretty nice game and it's fun to play, but don't expect to be able to just pick it up and get to the final of wimbledon in one sitting!