Publisher: Sega
Developer: Sumo Digital
Genre: Sports
Release Date: Available Now 

With the advent of the Wii Motion Plus, gamers are going to find more and more games dedicated to the Wii console’s core strength: interactivity focused on simple body movement. As indicated by the whopping success of Wii Sports and its sequel, a market exists for well crafted and executed sports-themed games. Virtua Tennis 2009 is a perfect example of this, a game that entertains while capitalizing on all of the unique functionality the Wii has to offer.

Virtua Tennis 2009 offers a wide variety of gameplay within the world of tennis. Players can choose to customize their own player and go on the world tour, playing exhibition matches and tournaments to move up the laddered rankings, collect winnings and buy better gear. The world tour mode offers a clever scheduling system, which requires you to plan your matches, training and even rest periods to maximize your effectiveness against opponents.

If something more casual is what you seek, Virtua Tennis offers the usual quick exhibition matches and many unique minigames that you can try head-to-head or over WiiConnect. In both of these modes you can choose to be some of the most famous names in tennis today, and inherit their unique skill sets. For example, choosing Andy Roddick means you get the advantage of having an ultra-fast serve.

There are two major pluses to Virtua Tennis 2009: its controls and its replayability. Even without a Wii Motion Plus connector, the controls are very good, and with it they are exceptional. This provides the best tennis-playing experience on the Wii to date. Even better perhaps is the fact that the game has so many ways to play, between the 12 minigames and a campaign mode that never goes stale. If anything, you’ll wear yourself out before you decide to quit.

While the racket-handling controls are extremely strong, one of the biggest negatives of Virtua Tennis is the inability to move your character around the court to exact positions. Usually this isn’t a problem, as the game chooses the optimum location for your character, but doing things such as attacking the net is a little harder to pull off. Also, the tutorials on how to perform tactics such as slices and dropshots aren’t very clear; more time could have been spent on them for novices.

If you’ve got a tennis fan in your house, Virtua Tennis 2009 is a game I would highly recommend picking up, especially for the Wii. It’s quite easily the best tennis game on the market, and there are plenty of fun things to play either alone or with friends.

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