Volley master – Virtua Tennis

British people have loved playing sports games on their computers and consoles for a long time. It’s meant that I’ve played a lot of them and got a look at quite a range of different approaches. In the earliest days, there wasn’t so much a question of attempting realism as of coming up with something fun that vaguely resembled a sport. Once games could emphasise realism, it generally didn’t go so well, both failing it at and ending up much more boring than the alternative.

What was more successful was simplifying in one of two different ways. One, by playing to a set of simple but flexible rules optimised for the gameplay, completely within the player’s control, rather than necessarily resembling to the sport. Let’s call that the Sensible Soccer approach. The other, to increase the realism but take some more control out of the player’s hands and run the most complicated bits without much of their input – the FIFA International Soccer approach. Other games found a middle way between the two by loading the player with options in ways confusing (European Champions) or generous (Formula One Grand Prix). Eventually, as realism and complication became easier to manage with better technology, a lot more games managed to incorporate the best of both approaches. Virtua Tennis is one of the best examples of that I’ve ever played.

On starting my first tennis match, it was trying to complicate things which caught me out. I tried to position myself, press the A button and hold the joystick one way, to hit the ball with perfect timing and direction. I almost invariably missed completely. Virtua Tennis doesn’t actually want you to do all of that, though. If Sega asked all of that, it would limit the speed and range of possibilities they could reasonably expect players to manage while still keeping the game easily accessible. Instead, in a choice which sounds weird but in practice is perfect, you barely have to worry about timing at all.

Let’s use playing a match as Tim Henman as an example, since he was the particular 2000 throwback I went with. Press a button to hit the ball — B or X for a lob; A for anything else — and you will lose the freedom to move Tim freely around the court. Your joystick movements will instead finesse the direction of the shot, although within limits such that you have to go some to miss the court. And Tim will take some efforts to get to the ball himself, although if you’ve left him stranded and he’s having to stretch for it, his return won’t be up to much (come on, Tim). You can still screw up in some pretty stupid ways, but it doesn’t take long to get to the point of playing the ball on most attempts. The result of that is that it’s really easy to get to feeling like you’re playing like a professional tennis player, thinking quickly in strategic terms, while still feeling like it’s you with the ability rather than the game doing everything for you.

The game also gives you a career mode full of quick-paced exciting ways to test yourself out. First you choose your tennis player, from a selection of the world’s better-not-best male players — a disappointing limitation when women’s tennis is and was a popular concern. Then you select from venues around the world to play quick-fire matches of best of three games, done in minutes, and to do fun training exercises like lobbing the ball into different colour buckets. You earn ranking and prize money, and buy new clothes, new racquets, and the services of doubles partners.

It gives a remarkably fast rate of exciting events, and lots of different things to look at, which is a particular plus with the Dreamcast graphics still well ahead of the competition. I enjoyed the curve of my skills gradually improving for some hard-fought wins, and it felt right that I succeeded with one serve-and-volley approach but soon got into trouble against anyone who played close to the net themselves. I haven’t played Virtua Tennis for long enough to know how it holds up at much higher levels or against another human opponent, but my experience is of a delightful feeling that fulfils the inherent promise of sports games. You are the tennis pro, at least for all the good bits.

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Top of the charts for week ending 9 September 2000:

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