Sega Sports Tennis

"This game is totally awesome, you have to try it!"

This game plays like Virtua Tennis and Tennis 2k2 from Dreamcast. Even if you have either one of those games, this game is well worth it.

Gameplay: 10/10

This game has the same mechanism as Virtua Tennis, but now with three types of shots instead of two. There are the lob, executed with the square, overhead topspin is executed with the X button, and the slice, which is a backspin and is slower, is executed with the circle button.

The opponent is very smart and hard. The tournaments will be giving you a hard time. You can be rallying with the opponent for a very long time. Imagine having ten deuces! Or the opponent hitting the ball at the upper left hand corner of the court near the net barely in and winning the game.

The main part of the game is the World Tour. What you basically do is that you create a male and female and work both of them up in tournaments and mini-games to make them number one. That's all I'm gonna say about that because I dont want to spoil it. But one thing i think is well worth noting is that when you build your character up, when you use it in exhibition, you can view their abilities like the real players. For ex. Tommy Haas has a strong forehand. If you build your player by practicing on their footwork and build up the level, you would be a fast runner. If your player is new and not that good, you would be considered a new face. Hope i didnt spoil too much. Well..there isn't that much to spoil anyway.

Graphics: 8 / 10

The graphics in this game is actually pretty good. When you play it looks pretty good...the player model resembles their real-life counter-part..well most of them. But at the cut-scenes is where the problem is. When it starts showing the cut-scene, everything turns blocky and starts going slow-motion a little. Then the screen kind of shakes and the graphics is pretty bad. That's what made my score from 9 to 8. But other then that...the graphics are not bad.

Sound: 9 / 10

The sound is pretty good. Not much to say in this category...other than the twacks are very pleasing to hear, the grunts are pretty kool, and the announcers too.

Replay Value / Lasting Appeal: 10 / 10

This game is just awesome. Either with a bunch of friends, or just single player in tournaments or building your created players in World Tour, this game is very in depth and is a huge step above Smash Court Tennis Pro Tournament. You can have anywhere between five minute matches to ten minute matches. Plus, the World Tour would probably take you a long long time.

Rent or Buy?

Definitely buy. Well worth it...like i mentioned above. UNLESS...you dont like tennis peroid. But other than that, then it should be very fun.

Overall

Excellent game...me and my brother plays it every chance we chance. If the graphics were better, it would improve the visuals much better. Only improvement is the cut-scenes. That is what made the overall score a nine insted of ten. But still an excellent game. One disappointment though...there is no Pete Sampras or Andre Agassi or Andy Roddick. Those three are very good...with Sampras going downhill now a bit. But i would love to have Agassi and Roddick to be in the game. But o wells...it's still very fun nonetheless. At least they have Tommy Haas.

(I hope I didnt put too much info in or repeated myself several times. If i did...sorrie)

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/06/02, Updated 08/06/02