Find Virtua Tennis Planet Tour @ Amazon.com
Virtua Tennis: Planet Tour, the arcade and home consolation hit, features three core gameplay modes: Planet Tour, where players travel the globe using a custom-made reputation to win cash; Exhibition, where players may take control of a pro tennis all-star for one-off matches; and Tournament, which puts players in knockout sessions where only the best will see victory. In addition, this quick-paced games also features a playable array of internationally well-known tennis pros in addition to a make-your-own player mode, exclusive mini-games, and firstborn courts. Wi-Fi gameplay is supported, encouraging up to four acquaintances to play together.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #16739 in Video Games
- Brand: Sega
- Model: 10086660029
- Released on: 2006-09-08
- ESRB Rating: Everyone
- Platform: Sony PSP
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: .75″ h x 4.00″ w x 7.00″ l, .22 pounds
Features
- Play singles or doubles in the USA, Japan, Australia, France and Fantastic Britain
- Three game modes — Exhibition, Tournament and Planet Tour
- New Make-A-Player feature – make your own tennis pro, upgrading the stats as you progress
- Wireless gaming for up to 4 players
Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Fun, but some slight issues
By Jonathan Kim
I bought this game because I delight in tennis and figured I would probably delight in a tennis game. The Planet Tour part of the game is probably the most fun part of owning the game.
The Planet Tour – The Meat and Potatos of Release Player
Making a player for the Planet Tour isn’t as indepth as I would’ve liked, but it does a excellent sufficient job. You make both a male and a female character and can switch between the two to raise their stats. To raise your stats you must play mini games that increase your skills in serving, volleying, footwork, etc. You gain experience for the minigames and, depending on what skills you used more over the course of the game, your skills go up. Completed challenges give multipliers to the experience so it behooves you to win.
To raise money, you can play in tournaments. You start ranked last at 300 and then slowly make your way up as you win tournaments. Tournaments are much quicker than real life tournaments (thankfully). Most usually consist of a few “best 2 out of 3″ matches. Doubles tournaments require you to spend your winnings on contracts and mixture up with some of the top tennis players. The computer controlled players really did way better than me… which was kind of disconcerting.
The game was very entertaining from a tennis fan’s point of view though here were two issues that I had with the game that keep it from getting that last star.
General Gameplay Issues
The first issue I had was the overall sluggishness of the boundary. Here was constant loading in every part of the game. Starting from the make a player boundary to the planet map where you choose what to do. And it just slowed down the process. It would’ve been nice if failed attempts at minigames would give you a prompt to see if you wanted to try it again instead of reloading the planet map and having to reload the levels again. Though the fact that i would play the same minigame over 10 times in a row should show how addictive it can become. The slowness may be attributed to the firmware version 1.52 that i had installed (ver. 2.00+ is out), and I don’t have another PSP to try the game out on.
The second minor issue I had was with the minigames. Right, they’re fun and addictive, but they don’t really change much as the game continues. The levels remain the same. They just add a few more objectives and keep the time limits the same. Some just seemed extremely hard agreed the lack of control you have in the beginning.. but they were still keeping me coming back for more so I suppose the issue isn’t as huge a deal. But the difficulty coupled with the loading times were an annoyance worth mentioning.
Conclusion
I recommend the buy to any person wanting a decent tennis game to play on the go (The tiny ball on the screen sometimes gets hard to track). Otherwise you’d probably be better off buying a console version of Top Spin (better graphics and nearer loading).
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Virtua Tennis PSP
By genesis1v1
Overall the game plays well with very nice graphics and sound. Life a tennis player, I appreciate the variety of shots you can make, though making a certain shot can be ‘hit or miss’ at times.
Here are several modes including quick game, exhibition, tournament or planet tour. Here are also a number of different surfaces including carpet, hard court, clay and grass and venues, including Tokyo, Melbourne, London and the USA.
One downside for me though is, even though I’ve made a custom player in Planet Tour mode, I still haven’t been able to build up sufficient skill to really play in any of the tournaments – the mini games to improve your skill seem quite hard. You need to improve your skill so that your custom player can take part in the planet tour mode.
Overall it’s a pretty nice game and it’s fun to play, but don’t expect to be able to just pick it up and get to the final of wimbledon in one sitting!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.NEVER give five stars but Best handheld tennis game
By HonestMan
I played tennis in high school and college. I own every handheld system tennis game here is. This is the best. Here’s why.
Incredible ball control. For me, it’s about making the shots. A drop when your opponent is on the baseline. hammering it deep to the right corner over and over and then whipping it to the far left. serve and volley. incredible angles. I can do it all on this psp game.
Graphics, graphics, graphics. Must be seen. BY FAR the best on a handheld system. Plus 2 player views. Overhead and on-court.
opponent skill and AI. amount your player to the max, set the computer opponent to very hard and have a ball. In all the months of play, I have only served 2 aces!
Simple to save at any point. If I have to turn off in the midpoint of a point, the system usually comes on to that point. Fantastic on the plane.
Passionate minigames.
If you are a huge fan of tennis and especially if you are a former competitive player – Buy this game.
See all 23 customer reviews…
