What do we have here.... oh a lame version of a dreamcast great!

Oh I remember the good old days, 6 years ago, when me and my brother would play Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast for hours screaming at each other and screaming, "THAT WAS SO CHEAP, MY PLAYER DIDN'T MOVE FAST ENOUGH," and then we would proceed to throw the controller. Obviously when Virtua Tennis came out for the PSP I was psyched, but this game is really nothing like the Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast. It feels like a completely different game with its bad aiming system and awful World Tour mode.

I remember how intense the matches were on the dreamcast, the tennis ball would move so fast across the court and in a few seconds you would have to decide what kind of hit you were going to use. This game doesn't feel like that at all. The ball moves so slow that it makes matches drag on way longer than they should. The result to this is you will be playing and the guy could be at the completely other side of the court and you will shoot it on the line on the complete opposite side of the court but the ball movement is so slow that he can actually get over there fast enough before it drops a second time; I've been in a single point that lasted minutes just because of the ball speed. The game really feels rushed; I think they were trying to get it out before the new Top Spin games came out.

Another example of how this game feels rushed is it says right on the back that you can play as or against 14 of the world's top tennis stars. Well I went into an exhibition match and I looked at the people I could be and I said to myself, "Hmmm that looks like eight on the top and eight on the bottom." Then I proceded to count the players and sure enough, there were eight on the bottom and eight on the top and the last I checked 8x2=16. The game features of some of the best Tennis players including Federer, Sharapova, Venus Williams, Haas, (no Nadal), but honestly the characters don't look much like who they are supposed to be at all. Federer's got the hair but when they zoom into his face, he looks Asian. To be honest, nothing about the graphics are really impressive at all and could have easily been a lot better.

The controls have been changed from the Dreamcast game too, which is understandable but I still am trying to press "Y" to hit a lob shot.

X= Top spin shot; The top spin shot is really slow and isn't a very good shot at all.

Square= Lob shot; The lob shot in the game is absolutely horrible. It doesn't go up very high, and what use is a lob shot if it is slow. The guy will just move back and then slam it, but of course the slam is toned down and is slow do to the slow ball speed.

O= Slice shot: The slice shot really doesn't feel much different the the top spin shot at all.

Triangle: No function: Yeah it seems like they could have added another shot like what me and my brother call the dinky shot, but there is no such shot!

The World Tour mode is both boring and repetetive. You start out with a man and a woman, you create both of them and then to build your stats you play little mini games that "help" you learn the game more. They really don't help at all though, but they do raise your stats. To raise your level as a tennis player in the World Tour mode you have to win competitions, and the competitions are just as you would expect; Just play a bunch of matches. The mini games are overly difficult and extremely repetetive. As you go on, your rank goes up. It feels like a poorly done version of the Dreamcast version's World Tour mode. Quite often you have to skip weeks of tennis to get to your next tournament because it is not like the Dreamcast game where when you play a tournament another one would open up. In this one if you lose a tournament, it's gone, and you have to wait for another one of your rank to come back. They continue to show you games that aren't at your rank anyway and it really doesn't make much sense.

So my final analysis is, this is the worst next generation system tennis game to date. This game really needed more time in the lab and it is obvious. So my recommendation; don't buy it. The game may feature a little bit of tennis entertainment if you are new to the tennis genre, but most likely this is just a way toned down version of the greatness of the dreamcast version.