Virtua Tennis 4 - Vita

     Virtua Tennis 4. Ahhh what a glorious way to break in my Vita. Tennis games are synonymous with handhelds. From back with the launch of the first handheld game system ever, the Nintendo Game Boy. Which launched with of course Tetris, originally packaged in with the system, and also Tennis was a launch window title. I played mostly those 2 games on my game boy until the first super mario land came along. Tennis fits onto a handheld. You can pick it up and run through a match or 2 pretty quick and then walk away. This fact about tennis games along with the sleep mode on the vita makes for a good combination.

     If you are looking for a tennis sim you need to look elsewhere. This isnt zany hot shots or sonic tennis. It has real players the likes of Roddick, Federer, and Nadal. But it is more a casual tennis experience. There's not too much to say aside from the controls feel nice. You can use analog or digital. There is a touch screen option that I didn't care for at all. Firstly why would you want to cover up the beautiful vita screen with your greasy Cheetos stained digits. Various types of returns like lobs, slices, and backhands can be performed very simply with the various face buttons.

     Where VT4 really shines through is the graphics. This game is beautiful. It would look beautiful on a full size screen. It just makes it even better that it is pocket sized. Animations look smooth and fluid. There is no slowdown even in doubles matches. The celebration animations and the TV style presentation are glorious. It's a nice game to show off what a vita can do graphically.

    The one part about VT4 that I didn't like was the season mode. The season mode is set up kind of like a board game. You draw cards to move. You hold 3 at a time, any one of which you can pick and move how many ever spaces the corresponding card says. You then accumulate stars based upon matches you enter and charity events you attend. It is very fun and addictive but the setup made me miss some tournaments due to not having enough stars/high enough ranking. Also the oppoonents seemed terrible easy to beat. Either I'm the jkokavitch of the virtual tennis world or its just too easy. I got scored on like 10 times total in my career. Also, last but not least just as I became a virtual tennis star the game was over. It was a bit too short and once I completed the map all I could do was start over from scratch. I couldn't continue my career into another round of seasons. It was a big bummer. I didn't want to start over again. Other than that the game was phenomenal, and was ultimately the game that sucked me in the most of all my launch titles. This game gets a 7 out of 10 due to its lacking in the replayability department and the longevity of the game.

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