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By brikrok3 (11th May 2008)Wii Tennis turns pro in this handsome and fun-filled reimagining of the Wii’s first game. Wii Tennis, meet Sega Superstars Tennis.

There was something almost accidental about the release of Wii Sports. More demo than full-fledged game, Wii Sports exhibited all the strengths of a bare-bone presentation—yes, one was forced to acknowledge, the Wii’s motion sensitivity transposes realistically onto sport after sport—while embarrassedly demonstrating all of the console’s and the game’s weaknesses, too. As a result, Wii Sports sort of looked like crap (a feature one inevitably gets used to when function is favoured over form); and the adaptation of motion sensitivity, while very good, seemed a bit lazy, a bit too obvious: matching the movement of the Wii swing to a baseball swing, Wii jabs to boxing punches, wasn’t really revelatory. So that when Wii Sports finally appeared on the market, bundled with the Wii as a good-to-get-started add-on (though sold separately in Japan), it felt as if people weren’t supposed to like Wii Sports as much as use it as a cypher to understanding the system. But people did like it, and Wii Tennis in particular, a lot. Everyone seemed to admit it: mechanically the game was fabulous, but visually a tremendous let-down. That was until now; in Sega Superstars Tennis, Wii Tennis turns pro.

The game revolves around 16 characters, all of which originate from one Sega enterprise or another, though Sonic remains the draw. Each character exhibits a special feature or two (the “Superstar State”). AiAi from the Super Monkey Ball series, for example, can cover his opponent’s court with slippery banana peels, just as NiGHTS’ shots will have players who return her volleys randomly transported all over the court. Others are less impressive, sometimes even less useful. Beat from Jet Set Radio, for instance, profitably returns balls from one side of the court to the other, an event topped off less advantageously by a spray-painted Jet Set Radio logo on the court. Viewed from one perspective—the one I assume Sega’s head honchos are hoping young gamers take on—this group of memorable characters on the tennis court is a bit like getting together with old friends and acquaintances for some heady racquet sport. But viewed from a more skeptical perspective, this rag-tag bunch of recycled characters seems either lazy, suggesting the kind of game-designer malaise in which franchise characters rather than quality ideas sell games, or smarmy, corporate types flooding the gaming market in hopes of expanding the name value of its better- and lesser-known characters. One need only think of that spray-painted Jet Set Radio logo on the court to question some executives’ motives.

The control scheme is pretty much self-evident, but options are available. You can, for instance, use the Wiimote by itself or you can combine it with the Nunchuk. This latter option seems the wiser of the two, allowing you to position your player on the court with one hand and to smash balls ferociously back with the other. Admittedly the control scheme is not as mimetic as I had hoped. Fast and slow hits are determined, as with real tennis, by the speed of your swing. Lobs and drop shots, though, require a combination of button hammering and swinging, the result being that you can hold down B, swing for the stands, and still offer up only a delicately placed drop shot. More attention to matching virtual to real play would have been nice. For those tired of both throwing their Wiimotes through open windows and hitting their dogs with runaway Nunchuks, the Classic Controller offers a decent back-up option.

Gameplay itself is good. The control scheme works proficiently, if not always mimetically, and the game’s physics don’t offer any absurd deviations from our own. Thus you hit the ball, the ball travels at a speed relative to your swing (physics are of course thrown out the window, though, when players enter their Superstar States). Most disappointingly, Sega Superstars Tennis offers no online play. What was once a quibble is increasingly becoming a true problem with the Wii; it is bizarre, to say the least, that Nintendo hasn’t gotten itself together enough to add what many now consider a standard feature of twenty-first-century gaming.

Visually the game is pretty tidy. Lines are generally crisp, players for the most part move as we might hope (the odd blockhead or lumpy body aside), and the courts are more or less visually appealing. Much of the visual tidiness the game presents can be chalked up to an intelligent use of light rather than the Wii’s limited graphic capabilities. Snappy neon lights strike out intergalactic courts, for instance, just as shadowy lampposts give texture to grimy urban scenes and puffs of fire from futuristic industrial vents create depth (glad to see internal combustion is still part of our future). Sometimes these lightshows will encumber visibility, though, so court selection is key. All in all, though, this is an excellent example of working with what you’ve got, rather than shoehorning extant design into limited systems.
The game’s soundscape is likewise decent, combining good sound effects with almost innumerable musical tracks. The tracks are taken mostly from existing games, as matched to ported characters, which offers something between nostalgia and a Proustian uncertainty about which game you’re at present playing. Voice-overs, the bane of adult gamers one imagines, are in effect, and they are as per usual effectively lame.

Ultimately the game is very good, though maybe not great. There is something a bit uninspired about making a tennis game on a motion-sensitive system just proficient, rather than new or fresh. Add the lack of an online playing experience and one might be tempted to move from mere quibbling to full-out complaining. That being said, Sega Superstars Tennis will be worth the purchase for Sega heads and tennis buffs, and worth the rental for everyone else. Overall, this game is a marked improvement over Wii Tennis, certain to keep players come back for serve after serve.