| | I rented 2 games last Friday at "Le Super Club Videotron" for $11 for 3 days: "Virtua Tennis 2009" and "Mario Power Tennis".
Virtua Tennis 2009
The learning curve was steep because there were no explanation what-so-ever. There's a blue bar with a cursor that indicates where you want to hit the ball. It took me about 20 minutes of continuous playing to figure that out. It's not much, but there could've been explanations somewhere without having to dig up the game's predecessors. For my sister, that was another story, she didn't know what that blue bar was for at all after hours of game play. The opening scene was great because the stars' appearances were well rendered, but when it came to the court, it looked horrible: bad shades, glowing eyes like gothic creatures, pony tails that looked like sharp pins...
My family and I went to Costco and my sister spotted Motion Plus for only $20 as opposed to $25 at Futureshit and at Best Bitch. I bought one to try the game again since it's suppose to be compatible with it. The most anticipated feature that you all have been waiting for: how well is this game with Motion Plus? It was even worse. The learning curve was like climbing Mount Everest wearing slippers and plastic coat hangers as hooks. Again, no tutorial on how to use the technology efficiently within the game. You get to change Wii-remote from standard to Motion Plus at the beginning of every match, which is pretty annoying. And you cannot change this, I guess "Wii-remote profile", during an on-going match. After enabling Motion Plus, the blue bar disappeared. My sister discovered that you actually have to move around the floor to indicate where you want your sprite to move. Nowhere in the game mentioned anything about this. Maybe it's mentioned in the game's manual, but since I've rented it, I don't have the luxury of knowing it without having to look up on the Internet.
There are lots of bugs with it too. When my opponent serves from the left corner, my sprite always runs to the right. So if my opponent serves to the middle, I will always miss it. My sister plays better because she actually focuses the tennis ball with respect to her sprite; I focus it with respect to me. And even after getting use to "jumping around the living room like a monkey from one place to another because I don't like to run in the living room", the biggest problem is forehand VS backhand. I'm not tennis player, but I am still good with rackets, and when it comes to rackets, timing and position are very important. In a lot of times, the sprite moves a bit too much and hits the ball with a forehand while I'm doing a backhand and vice-versa. I hit the ball a bit early to send the ball crossed court but the response time was slow hitting the ball late sending the ball opposite side of what I intended to do. If I have to adapt my game plan by either moving my physical position "accurately" or using the directional pad on the Wii-remote (D-pad), then clearly SEGA forcefully integrated Motion Plus at the last minute with no intention of making it good at all. Some places rated 8.5, some 6.0, and some 3.0. How much do I give? 3.0, and I'm being very generous already.
Mario Power Tennis
This game is just as bad. I was already bored after the first match. The characters are great because they are from Mario Kart, and I love playing Mario Kart. But I find it too slow and the learning curve is just as bad as the game above. Even though a tutorial is provided, there's no "try outs" for practicing shots. On a regular court, the game is just slow; with special tricks, the game is slow, funny and interesting at first, but then back to boredom, and finally, with special court, the player is overwhelmed with the special effects confusing the hell out of you. No bugs with the game what-so-ever because it's relatively simple. Overall rating: 4.0 and I'm not being generous.
So there you have it. I've played games for most of my weekend and moving stuff around the house at the request of my parents' obsession in doing everything at once in a hurry like there's no tomorrow. I'm hoping HARD that Grand Slam Tennis will be much better. In terms of graphics, I know it will. After all, EA has much more experience than SEGA when it comes to user interactions in a sport game although EA hasn't produced any tennis game in a very long while if at all. Next up, I might just rent Need for Speed Undercover to see how bad it really is.
So how did you spend your weekend? |
| | Posted 6/29/2009 12:45 PM - 7 Views - 2 eProps - 2 comments
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