Virtua Tennis started life in the arcades, and it shows with gameplay that’s more about arcade thrills than realism. Full of canned animated responses to specific scenarios, and with end-to-end action that at times resembles an admittedly very pretty version of Pong, it’s a far cry from what you see on the TV; but when you’re immersed in the action, Virtua Tennis feels like you’re battling for that maiden tour event with all your heart.
At least it does when the controls work, because they do vary between the ridiculous and the sublime. Various on-screen buttons are available, which work reasonably well, but the game really wants you swiping for victory. For the most part, whizzing your hand across the screen to unleash a furious volley is satisfying, but every now and again, your wannabe tennis star will instead take it upon themselves to wonder over to the net. Swiping across the net usually – but not always – deals with this problem, but there are occasional moments of madness, which make you want to serve your iPhone out of the window.
There are some other issues, too: the player line-up mystifyingly lacks women, and iPhone 5 optimization to SEGA apparently meant ‘stretch the graphics horizontally’. However, Virtua Tennis is so much fun when you’re in the thick of the action that it does enough to clinch that all-important match point.
New tournaments are yours to enter on a regular basis, if you’ve the funds.
Price: $4.99/£2.99
Size: 64.0 MB
Version: 1.0.5
Platform: iPhone and iPad
Developer: Sega
