SEGA Sports Tennis Review

When I played soccer and volleyball in high school, I always thought that tennis was a niceproper sport, usually best played by rich kids and debutants (all dressed in happy white). It was kind of a narrow, macho perspective on things, but it was also true in some respects. Now that I'm older and wiser (and in some ways even more stupid), I like tennis, and hold none of the grudges I used to. In fact, now that women's tennis has evolved and grown so much -- and that the sport has been so well translated to videogames -- tennis is now one of my favorites.

We here on the PlayStation 2 site are giddy about playing Sega Sports Tennis until all hours of the night. This port of the Dreamcast game, Tennis 2K2 has a few extras and bonuses the Dreamcast game didn't have, but it may not be as big of a visual improvement (and in some cases it's less attractive than the DC version) that I would have liked. Still, it's intuitive to play, good to look at, and miles deep in the single player mode, and it has earned my respect as the best tennis game on any system.

Gameplay
Tennis is no longer for sissies, I say. Scrap those tight white short shorts, say goodbye to Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, and say hello to the new roster of top professionals, dressed in backward baseballs caps, stylish miniskirts, and sporting serious forearms, buffed out shoulders and biceps, and some of the fastest reflexes on the planet. On the cover of this game are two female players who are helping to change the face of women's tennis, Serena and Venus Williams who, at the time of this writing, are ranked as the number 1 and number 2 women tennis players in the world. That they are on the cover of Sega Sports Tennis is good for tennis and good for gamers.

For those who have played the Dreamcast version of the game, Sega Sports Tennisfollows the same format as Tennis 2K2, adding and changing a few extras worth mentioning. For those who haven't, here's the skinny. Players can choose from between 16 top-ranked men and women tennis players on a variety of surfaces in major singles and doubles tournaments all across the world (28 in all). The roster includes newly added Japanese star Ai Sugiyama (who's not in the Dreamcast version -- nanner!), Lindsay Davenport, Monica "Uggggnnnhhh!" Seles (who does indeed grunt in the game), Mary Pierce, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario and Alexandra "Hottie" Stevenson. On the men's side there is Patrick Rafter, Tim Henman, Cedric Pioline, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Tommy Hass, Thomas Enqvist, Magnus Norman, and Carlos Moya. No -- Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Lleyton Hewitt, nor Anna Kournikova are in the game. It should be noted that the first Sega tennis game didn't have any female players, while this one offers an equal representation of women and men.

The game features three major modes of play, Exhibition, Tournament, and World Tour. Exhibition is the standard, single match competition, and is Tournament a full competition tournament including cash winnings and increasingly difficult opponents as players reach into the quarter, semi and finals stages. World Tour is the most interesting aspect of the game in that it offers players the ability to build their own male or female player from a penniless amateur (ranked 300th in the world) to the world's number one ranked player. There are choices for singles and doubles options in every one of these modes, and in the first two modes (Exhibition and Tournament), players can choose to play in human-to-human games, or using a PS2 Multi-tap, they can vie with up to four players. I'll go deeper in-depth into the World Tour mode in a little bit.

What Sega has done here is to make tennis a great-looking game that plays nearly flawlessly. Sega Sports Tennis provides nearly perfect control and animation into your hands, so that you only have to worry about placement, spin control, and the actual art and science of playing, without having to worry about control issues, weird interfaces, or other technical problems. The controls are simple and intuitive, which is part of what makes this game so damned easy to pick up and play. The configuration sets up X as topspin shot, Circle as slice, Square as lob shot, and Triangle as view change (by selecting it once players can view the game from a closer isometric angle than the default isometric angle). The Dpad and analog devices are interchangeable and it's wise to try both, because the analog is preferable for serving, while for the bulk of the game the Dpad is best. And that's it, with that simple set of controls, you will be able to engage in one of the most intense, challenging, and surprising tennis games on the planet.

Controlling the players is practically ingenious. Essentially, this is a complex looking game of Pong on the most basic level of play. But on another level, Sega's tennis game re-creates the sport of tennis with a master's knowledge of the sport. To become a master, players must think like a tennis player, guessing and anticipating where their opponent's next stroke will land, and putting their bodies and their racquets in the best possible position to hit the ball with the most amount of power. It's all about placement inSega Sports Tennis, and if you master that, you're going to win. I have sat in awe after slamming a deep corner shot as the AI returned my stroke with a hard corner shot in the opposite corner, and I have yelled out in disbelief as the my opponent and I attained 10 straight deuces. In doubles tournaments, the ball moves so fast it's unbelievable how much skill and placement is required. The doubles multi-tap game is outrageously fun.

Which is a perfect segue into why Sega Sports Tennis isn't just more of Virtual Tennis, the first in the series. It's a deeper, more challenging title, and packs fierce AI that borders on unstoppable. Just like in Namco's Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament, once players get into the semi-finals, they must play in absolute top form. Any mistakes, and you will lose; if not one point, then the whole game. Sega's title grows tougher faster in the Tournament mode, and while I rarely say this, I suggest new players start by selecting the easy mode to get things going. Once comfortable, they should then move up to medium difficulty.

The World Tour is a whole other animal. World Tour is essentially a tennis RPG game inside the game. You build two players (one male, one female), created from scratch, and then, ranked as 300th in the world and with no cash whatsoever, you start a career. On the world globe, players can select a home base and engage in as many as eight mini-games to build their skills for upcoming tournaments. A moderately useful calendar interface enables players to see upcoming tournaments, so they can prepare for it by building themselves up or resting for a week, which helps to rebuild stamina (an important aspect of this game). World Tour mode by itself easily offers 60-plus hours of replay value.

The mini-games are excellent for training and they truly work for both utilitarian purposes, and for educational and training reasons. And, the real kicker is that they're entirely fun little mini-games in their own right. Among other things, they definitely raise this game above Namco's effort. They work pretty simply. You enter into a mini-game and face the challenge, whether they're serving, footwork, volley, or stroke training. The eight mini-games include Pin Crasher (serving), Danger Flags (Footwork), Bull's Eye (volley), Tank Attack (Stroke), Disc Shooter (stroke), Stomp Man (footwork), Alien Force (volley) and Prize Sniper (serve). After playing in one, the screen shows your improvement using bar graphs and levels. There are eight levels of improvement for each, and once players have achieved an accumulated level of upgrades, they move up to the next level.

The mini-games are crucial in the World Tour Mode for various reasons, the most important being that after improving to higher level, your player can then enter into a higher rank tournament. And the higher ranking the tournament, the more cash you can win. The goal of all this is to become the number 1 ranked player in the world. It's a long road, too, because you start out as a total loser, ranked 300th and with no cash in pocket. So, you truly have to work here to nab a high ranking.

There are some interface issues in the World Tour mode. Players should have the chance to replay that particular mini-game without having to return back to the map. It's not a big complaint, but just like in Gran Turismo 3 A-spec, after 30 hours, a slick, streamline interface is so very appreciated. Also, I feel that you should be able to select the tournament from your calendar, not just from the globe. And, hey, real tennis players don't start off with $0. They have some money, even if it's only $1,000 or so. These players should start off with something.

Lastly, after having put in about 20 hours of Sega Sports Tennis, it's become very clear to me that this game is difficult in the most realistic meaning of the word. The Tournament gets gruelingly hard and the World Tour is made long and deep, in part, because it's simply very difficult. So, while the arcade side of the game is enticing at first, to become a real pro, players are truly going to have to put in more than 20 hours. Maybe even more. I have seen the AI return what looked like the perfect shot, and I have see the AI get balls it really shouldn't have. Is that just like in real life? Perhaps. Is this a videogame? Yes. Are videogames real life? No. Even for a guy like me who puts in hundreds of hours a month into games, I would have liked the AI to be slightly less brutal. You'll really have to learn the opponent's tendencies and his or her style, and become ferociously good yourself to become the top ranked player in the world. Suffice it is to say, Sega Sports Tennis is more difficult than Virtua Tennis, so you may want to bone up before attacking it.

Graphics
What's interesting about this Dreamcast port is that Sega's game looks as good as the Dreamcast version in some respects, while in some cases it looks better -- and worse. I'll explain. The facial textures and clothes textures look more detailed, while on the other hand, some of the face textures are real misses. The face textures on Venus Williams, Lindsay Davenport, Tim Henman and Patrick Rafter, for instance, look accurate and close to real. While, others, such as those on Mary Pierce, don't look so hot. To me, Mary Pierce looked like Monica Seles at first. D'oh!

The courts all look respectable, and since they aren't real re-creations of particular real-life courts, they do the trick fine. The crowds are cardboards cutouts, and in any of the cutscenes, you'll get a face full of unrealistic looking "things", which kind of dampens the realness of the game compared to the athletes themselves.

The only other real issues are the game's aliasing and shimmering. The Dreamcast version is smooth and curvalicious (not actually a word). While the PS2 version does indeed provide players with those lovely graphic faults as it shimmers and shakes, it shows that programming a PS2 game -- or in this case, porting to the PS2 -- is harder than it looks. The game is far better than the most games with aliasing problems, but these faults are there (as they are in some Xbox, GameCube and PC games I've seen), and they're hard not to notice.

Sound
Essentially enhanced versions of the first game's musical selection, Sega Sports Tennis's musical selection is a gaggle of arcade-like, techno songs that can indeed get into your skull. To me, that's the sign of good videogame music. It's not that they're great songs, but they're definitely catchy.

After re-playing the other PS2 tennis games (Konami's and Namco's), it's clear that Sega didn't do as good a job with the atmosphere and presentation as the others. The announcer and the crowd aren't as lively, nor as prominent. Along with the cardboard cutout crowd, players may feel a little underwhelmed by these elements.

THE VERDICT

This is just the best tennis videogame on the planet. Despite my few valid complaints, the game is deep, challenging, and structured in a way that the single-player modes are rich and rewarding, while the multiplayer games are unbelievably engaging. I don't know how many videogame tennis players there are out there, but you really need to play this game if you even have one iota of interest.

For those folks who compare scores and who have seen the Dreamcast score of this game, I'll provide a brief explanation. Our good buddy Anthony Chau, along with the entire Dreamcast crew, now freely admit to having over-rated many games. It's OK, we all do it on occasion, but while this game is genuinely great, it's no 9.6. Anyway, the scores aren't compatible, so please don't compare them.