Product Description

Building on its strong consumer following and consistently high review scores, the Virtua Tennis series delivers another ace this May. Virtua Tennis 2009 maintains the unprecedented realism and pin-point gameplay mechanics the series is known for and also now features improved shot accuracy, more control on serves and the chance to compete for the esteemed Davis Cup. Players will sharpen their court skills in 12 fan-favorite mini-games in preparation for fierce competition in an all-new World Tour mode where they will smash the competition as one of 20 elite tennis stars. Virtua Tennis 2009 for Wii is compatible with Wii Motion Plus!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193 in Video Games
• Brand: Sega Of America, Inc.
• Model: 65025
• Published on: 2009-06
• Released on: 2009-06-09
• ESRB Rating: Everyone
• Platform: Nintendo Wii
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .60" h x 5.30" w x 7.50" l, .36 pounds

Features

• Take your career online and compete for the ultimate title of Virtua Tennis Champion with the new online ranking system. With prize money you earn in online tournaments, you can purchase over 800 items in the new Tennis Store and upgrade your character.
• New Players / Courts – Play as or against over 20 of the world’s top players, including seven new to Virtua Tennis and three legends. All-new arenas and the officially licensed Davis Cup provide the most realistic tennis competition to date.
• New Player Creation System – You now have full control over facial, body and clothing customization, as well as the depth to populate the game world with hundreds of unknown opponents.
• More Court Games – Playing alone or with up to three friends compete in 12 mini-games, five completely new, and upload your hi-scores on the worldwide rankings in games such as Zoo Feeder and Pirate War.
• Improved Gameplay – Courtside action is better than ever, with extensive updates to the famous arcade-style Virtua Tennis match engine, as well as 3D crowds and a more realistic courtside experience.

Amazon.com Product Description
Step out onto the court and get ready to face off against some of the world's top players. Virtua Tennis 2009 serves up intense tennis fun that brings the action on the court to life with incredible realism. Demonstrate your control and accuracy with the series' trademark pinpoint gameplay mechanics that lend every stroke, volley and serve real-life power and immediacy, and show you've got what it takes to compete for one of the sport's most coveted prizes.

Player Creation System View larger. 12 mini-games View larger. New Courts View larger. Synopsis Create your own player and join the new World Tour where you will be trained by a real-life legend of tennis to compete for the #1 ranking against the biggest stars. Then take your character online and prove you’re the best with the new online ranking system! With brand new courts, a new roll call of tennis stars to compete against and even more court mini-games, Virtua Tennis 2009 is set to be the #1 tennis title once again! Key Game Features: • New Players / Courts – Play as or against over 20 of the world’s top players, including seven new to Virtua Tennis and three legends. All-new arenas and the officially licensed Davis Cup provide the most realistic tennis competition to date. • New Player Creation System – You now have full control over facial, body and clothing customization, as well as the depth to populate the game world with hundreds of unknown opponents. • More Court Games – Playing alone or with up to three friends compete in 12 mini-games, five completely new, and upload your hi-scores on the worldwide rankings in games such as Zoo Feeder and Pirate War. • Improved Gameplay – Courtside action is better than ever, with extensive updates to the famous arcade-style Virtua Tennis match engine, as well as 3D crowds and a more realistic courtside experience. More Information Virtua Tennis 2009 comes filled with enhancements that amp up the excitement on the court. Design your own customized player in the new player creation system, which offers a huge variety of options and includes improvements to hair, skin and texture detail. An enhanced world tour lets you pit your skills against more than 20 licensed pros and even make a run at the Davis Cup. Show off your tennis talents in arenas around the globe, complete with 3D crowds, and hone your skills to pro level in a tennis academy in which you'll take lessons from such greats as Stefan Edberg and Tim Henman. There are also 12 action-packed mini games that let you test your reflexes beyond traditional tennis, including Alien Attack, Avalanche and Meat Defender.

Customer Reviews

A comparison to Grand Slam Tennis. Motion Plus. Actual tennis player.
I've had Grand Slam Tennis and Virtua Tennis for one day and played them about 3 hours each. I've played tennis for years. I'm using Motion Plus.

Here's a comparison.

Tournament mode: Grand Slam wins by a kilometer --- In Grand Slam Tennis you play the Grand Slam tour and do some exhibitions. No stupid "shopping races" like in Virtua Tennis. This part of Virtua Tennis is highly annoying. I don't want to run around a court on a shopping spree and jump through arbitrary hoops in order to play in a tournament. This part of Virtua was so annoying it took Virtua from 5 stars to 4 stars for me. Grand Slam exhibitions / mini games are fun while Virtua is annoying. On the other hand, you can just press "play" and choose tournament in Virtua but the experience is not as full as Grand Slam.

Graphics: Virtua Tennis wins by a meter. The crowd is better and players movement's are much more realistic to the player's style. Grand Slam's graphics are more cartoonish but with the announcers and the angles and replays it is more like participating in a match while you watch it on television... the presentation is better but does not make up for the better Virtua movement and detail.

Speed of play: Virtua Tennis by a kilometer. Your character moves at a more realistic pace and the match is just a more entertaining, fast action pace.

Controls: Grand Slam by a centimeter: Grand Slam's controls are easier to master. Virtua's controls have less tolerance for error. You MUST complete the training coach with Virtua to master any advanced shots, even then the drop shot leaves me wanting to smash the controller! Grand Slam's topspin, backspin, and fade are more true to real tennis, while Virtua's serve, lob, and dropshot are much more true. Grand Slam allows you to "cheat" somewhat by using the nunchuck to help with your crosscourt winner, while Virtua requires you to nail it perfectly. While I appreciate Virtua's effort, sometimes my intentions do not translate, but I suppose that's true in real tennis too.

Overall experience: A tie. Really. I appreciate Virtua's pace and effort at control realism, but Grand Slam gets the top spin and back spin nearly perfect... and that's a huge part of a real tennis player's game. Grand slam lets you cheat using the A button for a lob and B for a drop shot, and the nunchuck for crosscourt slams. Virtua has great realistic smash and lob controls, but the drop shot is just too hard and overambitious. The tennis stars in Virtua are more current and broader. Grand Slam gives you classic stars and current stars. Virtua's graphics are killer but the career mode is like throwing Jar Jar Binks into Star Wars... annoying and distracting. I want to play tennis, not the Sims! They both have room for improvement, but for a quality virtual tennis experience both beat the "plug and play" Wii Sports. Both require a bit of patience to learn. I'll come back to both for different reasons. 4/5 for Grand Slam. Note: I originally gave Virtua 4/5 stars. After playing it more see my warning below! And I now have to say if you are just going to by one, buy Grand Slam.

Edit after playing both for about 1 week: I can't win one game playing Virtua with a nunchuck. It is meant to only be played with the Remote. If you want to play a souped up, fast paced version of Wii Sports Tennis, this is for you. If you want to play a game with the nunchuck that requires thought, anticipation, and Strategy, play Grand Slam Tennis. If I could re-rate Virtua tennis after one week. I'd give it a 2.5 or 3 stars. If I could re-rate Grand Slam after one week, it would get a 5 star rating.

Get up off the couch and hit the courts!
Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R4FGVJSTAC470 Virtua Tennis is a great game on so many levels. The nice thing is that you can just pick up and play without reading a lot of instructions and still have a lot of fun, or you can build a character and really get into the games and tournaments and move up in the ranks. I played the game first without the Wii MotionPlus yesterday and it was fun, but when the MotionPlus arrived today I found it gave me more control over my racket and the way I hit the ball. It also made it easier to do slice and drop shots, lob shots or smash the ball. You have to physically take a backhand or forehand stance to accurately hit the ball. You have to twist and turn your body just like you would in a real game. It makes the whole experience that much more realistic.

I loved the Wii Sports Tennis and spent hours and hours playing, but always wished there was more to it. Virtua Tennis is the answer to my prayers. First off, the graphics are really beautiful. You have a choice of places to play like New York, Paris, Melbourne and others. The players look and move like real people. Not that I'm knocking those cute little Mii's but you know what I mean. There are lots of characters to choose from if you want to just play online matches or you can start your own career in the World Tour. You select a basic character to start and then refine their looks with a whole bunch of different options. You actually have quite a bit of control over the way they look and this "me" looks like a real person. Then you have a bunch of options to train and develop your player and enter tournaments around the world while you move up (hopefully!) in rankings, pushing to become Number 1.

One of the many things included in this game is the Tennis Academy where you can learn and brush up on techniques like serving, strokes, and footwork. You can choose which ones you want to work on. You can change your character's ability and play styles or unlock more by completing different Tennis Academy Missions. You can also select challenges from the global map to help improve your game skills.

Other options are competitions where you can play practice matches or sponsorship matches. In the sponsorship matches you can win prize money that you can use in the Tennis Store to buy more clothes, rackets, court passes and all kinds of stuff. It's just one of the little things things that add to the realism of the game.

There are also several Court Games in the World Tour mode, with names like Alien Attack, Avalanche, Court Curling and mnay more. The ones I tried just seemed kind of goofy and I'm more interested in playing tennis so I haven't really tried many of them yet. There is also online play where you can play matches with friends or anyone who has the game and is online. Imagine coming home from work at night and playing a match with a friend on the other side of the country. Or having a regular Saturday morning tennis game with a kid away at college or a friend in another state.

This game is great fun even if you're not a kid or if you're a 60 year old one like me. My reason for buying a Wii was exercise that's fun and this is exactly that. It'll get you up and moving and it's realistic enough that there's probably the chance of tennis elbow if you play long enough. If you enjoyed Wii Sports Tennis but always wished it was "bigger and better" I think you'll really enjoy this game.

Update 6/14/09 - I'm posting a video because it's difficult to see from the trailer what the game is really like, although it looks much better in person. It loses something when you take a picture off the TV and compress it in order to post here, but I'm hoping it'll give you a better idea of the game and some of it's features. (I cut the scenes where I knocked the camera off the tripod with the WiiMotionPlus trying to hit the "ball")

Take a day to learn the MotionPlus and you'll thank yourself...another amazing new wii tennis game!
First, I must say that the day Grand Slam Tennis was released those who were used to playing the Wii with the old remote said they didn't get how to use the new motionplus or thought it was broken and gave it a couple stars. Little by little all those votes were changed as people realized it was user error because it really is like getting off of a bicycle and learning to ride a motorcycle and thinking it will be the same. Now that game is almost up to 5 stars in just a couple days. Be patient and you'll be amazed.

Give yourself time to get used to the motionplus. If you are used to just having to flick your wrist and do a killer shot as you could for the first wii tennis games, you will soon realize that form does matter here. And that's a good thing. Like a real tennis game, how you hold the racket and position yourself and move makes a lot of difference and the motionplus, like magic, picks it all up.

It brings realism into the tennis game.

Give it a day and you'll realize how tremendous the motionplus is.

That said, I agree with tbe other reviewer who stated you MUST complete the training section in order to master the controls. And I also agree that it seemed like I mastered them easier playing Grand Slam tennis.It's worth it.

For the non-tennis buff vs. the expert: We have both in this household. One loved the shopping mode during tournaments because it added fun to it, the expert did not and just wanted pure tennis. You can turn that off but it's a positive if you are still learning the game or want a little more added to it.

The graphics are better in this than Grand Slam. Grand Slam's players are a bit like Speed Racer cartoons...you get who they are but they aren't as real as this. This denotes further realism.

I agree that the 1:1 reaction time of the motionplus seemed more evident on this one. We had a few issues where it didn't seem that way on the Grand Slam tennis. However, another review commenter noted that if we have an HDTV you either need special cables or to set some wii games otherwise you wont get the appropriate reaction time. We did that and it did seem to improve. Still, this one seemed better from the get go on reaction time when compared one after the other last night.

The cost of this game, as of this writing, June 13th, is the best buy for the new games that are motionplus compatible. However, this one does not come with a motionplus and it should be noted that Tiger Woods does, as does the upcoming Wii Sports Resort. If you plan on ordering any of those games and have the motionplus, you'll wind up with a spare for friends if you buy one separately with this game. If you dont have one and are thinking of getting any of those games, it makes it free with Sports Resort as of today's price. If you get it with the Tiger Woods game it is now ten bucks more because the cost of that game shot up ten bucks the day after it's release due to demand. The moionplus was originally free in that game.

This enables a new era in gaming for tennis playing and truly improving your tennis skills because you can make the ball do soooo much more with the motionplus and how you control your racket totally matters now so you are more a part of the game than before.

So which one wins? I say this one does. My honey says the Grand Slam tennis. It comes down to personal preferance I believe. Honey is the expert player and I am not if that helps your decision.

UPDATE: We just got two more votes from friends who are both tennis players. They both chose this one as the best. But also agreed it was almost too close to call. They also played with and without the wii motionplus for comparison (bear in mind, it is not included with this game) and they agreed it took a day to master but paid off in more realism in the end.

This is another great tennis game for the wii. We are actually glad we got them both as it's fun to switch them out and get some variety. Unlike the old school wii tennis games, you'll come out of this one a better player...not just better at flicking your wrist to get a shot!

Rating: A plus as played after mastering the motionplus