Virtua Tennis 4 (Kinect Compatible)

After playing Smash Pro Tennis in the past and enjoyed it, Virtua Tennis 4 was a let down... The game play just didn't feel real, and your not playing in real arena's around the world.

After downloading the demo for Top Spin 4 the game play felt better, shots were more real, actual arena's in the game. I wish I played the demo for Virtua Tennis first before I bought it.

I think it's a very enjoyable game at a reasonable price. Great fun, great entertainment! It's a must-buy, but the only let down is that it hasn't got the real tournament names, but you can tell what it is anyway, eg. "Classic English" = Wimbledon. Well happy with it :)

I bought this from play for only a tenner new and it was worth it, The game graphics are to point and i cant spot anyone in the audience the same. Someone on here said the graphics were poor but you will see for your self there there not. Like any game of this genre it gets boring quick but is a wicked tennis game especially multi-player.

Virtua Tennis 4 is a fun sports game. The gameplay is a cross between the arcade gameplay of Virtua Tennis 2 and the more realistic gameplay of the Top Spin series, its alot of fun but feels like a compromise of the two styles and plays like a PS2 game. The best part of the game is the new career mode which gives you 4 seasons to top the rankings, making it a race to the number 1 spot rather than a long slog like some tennis games. The career mode is made for repeated play on different difficulty levels, and making your way accross the board game style setup on a world map balancing training, resting and competing is excellent. I've not played kinect so don't know how well that works.

I understand why some people don't like the game as it's not as realistic as some others out there but it is a nice little game, especially when you just want to play something while you relax for an hour.

Arcade Mode is pretty good if you just want to pick up a game for 20 minutes to pass the time, increasing in difficulty slightly as you move through the random(ish) 5 players you have to face to complete the mode.

Career Mode isn't the most complex but it's fun and differs slightly each time you play through it due to the randomly generated "move cards" which allow you to move a set number of spaces each time. What I liked was that you could choose whether you would compete in matches, take part in publicity events or play minigames to make your way around the map tournament-tournament.

My problems with the gameplay come in the lack of any sort of differing style of play. While you can choose your style of play e.g. Serve and Volley it only affects how you raise your power bar and not your strengths/weaknesses on court. Obviously you should play to your strength in order to power up the bar but you really don't have to and the game is simple enough to play without powering up at all.

The other thing which sadly lets it down is the online experience - there isn't one. I can only comment on the 360 version of the game but at times it can take up to 30 minutes to find a match. The other problem with online is the ranking system which raises quite fast at first and then slowly starts to demand serious dedication in order to get it any higher. Given that the game lacks any sort of variety when playing online, most people just don't bother.

Achievements-wise, the game isn't too bad. You can get the majority of them playing through Arcade and Career once or twice with only a few of them giving you any sort of difficulty - there's a Special Match available in Arcade which might seem impossible when you first encounter it. However, due to the lack of online community it isn't the best game to buy if you're a completionist looking for 1,000 gamerscore as even with a friend helping you out, it'll take the best part of 25 - 30 hours to reach the top rank.

Overall, a really fun game for the most part but let down badly by lack of complexity and no incentives to play online.