Sega Superstars Tennis Review

Written by: Darren Cartledge Posted: 19th March 2008

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Sonic and friends hit the tennis courts in Sega's latest sports title.

Sega Superstars Tennis Details:

	Sports
	PlayStation 3/Xbox 360/Nintendo Wii/Nintendo DS
	SEGA
	SEGA

Out Now

N/A

It’s games that you can pick up and simply play that have helped make Nintendo’s Wii the success that it has become, appealing to the more casual gamer, who isn’t looking for engrossing story driven game and just wants to have fun playing games. It’s fair to say that Sega Superstars Tennis could be classed as one of these games.

Sega Superstars Tennis features four game modes, match, tournament, superstars and games. The match mode allows you to play in customised tennis matches, in either singles or doubles format against other players or AI controlled players. The games tournament mode is exactly what you would expect in a tennis game, play through multiple rounds in order to win the championship.

Superstars mode allows you to play in 100 challenges based around some of Sega’s best known games such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Golden Axe and Super Monkey Ball to name a few.

The Superstars mode is split into zones with each zone being based on a well known Sega game, in the zones you will encounter characters from that specific game and play on tennis courts based around the title. Some of the zones are locked so you will have to gain access to them by playing through the available zones. Completing some of the challenges within the zones will also unlock new characters which can be used to play in the games other modes and in the challenges themselves.

Challenges range from competing in tennis tournaments to knocking out zombies with tennis balls, or collecting rings whilst avoiding bombs and spiked balls being served at you. While the challenges are fairly varied from zone to zone, they do become a little repetitive for instance in the Sonic challenges you collect rings, you then collect rings in a specific order and then have to collect the moving rings, its all slightly unfulfilling.

The final game mode included in SEGA Superstar Tennis is a mini games option, these games are similar to those played in the Superstars Challenges and can be played by a single player or by up to four players on the same console.

Like in SEGA’s Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games, characters have been categorised to have a speciality. These are All-rounder, speed, control and spin. In all honesty I couldn’t tell any notable differences between the different character types. Having said that each character has its own unique special move, these vary from sending balls that twist through the air towards your opponent, to being surrounded by distracting characters.

When playing the games challenges you are required to hold the Wii remote horizontally using the buttons to play your shots, however when playing tennis matches the game utilises the Wii’s motion sensing controls brilliantly as you perform shots as you would if you were playing a real game of tennis.

There are two control systems to use when playing games of tennis, one utilises the nunchuck. This for me is the best system, you use the nunchuck to move your character around the court choosing the best position to take your shots and the Wii remote is used to perform your shots. Playing the game with out the nunchuck makes the game far too easy, as the computer moves your character automatically in to the best position. All you have to worry about is the timing of your swings, while this may sound good, it makes the game far too easy even on the games hard difficulty setting.

Despite the fact that Sega Superstars Tennis features several multiplayer options I can’t help feel that it needed something more and the addition of online play would have really helped with the games lasting appeal, which as a single player game can be a little lacking.

Visually the game looks good, courts are fairly well varied and you’ll instantly be able to relate them to some of Sega’s classic titles including After Burner, Outrun and so on. Characters from some of Sega’s most popular games are also instantly recognisable and well animated.

Sound is also good and once again music comes from classic games, the limited speech that’s present can get a little repetitive especially since characters seem to repeat the same lines every time you score a point, other then that sound has been done well.

Whilst the tennis aspect of Sega Superstars Tennis is good, there simply isn’t enough of it to make this a really enjoyable single player game. The challenges and mini games offer a little bit of variation but most of them just have you doing the same thing over and over and have no real lasting appeal. The multiplayer options available within the game go some way to preserve the replay value but it could have really done with an online version, overall it’s enjoyable as a single player game in small doses but needs to be played with friends to get the most enjoyment.