Virtua Tennis 2 Explained

Virtua Tennis 2
Developer:Hitmaker
Publisher:Sega
Acclaim Entertainment (Europe, PS2)
Director:Katsumoto Tatsukawa
Producer:Mie Kumagai
Designer:Kazuko Noguchi
Programmer:Mitsuharu Saikawa
Composer:Chiho Kobayashi
Series:Virtua Tennis
Released:Arcade
2001
Dreamcast
PlayStation 2
Genre:Sports
Modes:Single-player, multiplayer
Platforms:Arcade
Dreamcast
PlayStation 2
Arcade System:Sega NAOMI

Virtua Tennis 2, known as Tennis 2K2 in North America and in Japan, is a sequel to Virtua Tennis that was released for the Sega Dreamcast, Sega NAOMI arcade unit and Sony's PlayStation 2 (known as Sega Sports Tennis in North America) in 2001–2002. New features included the ability to slice and play as female players such as Monica Seles, Serena Williams, Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport and the males such as Patrick Rafter, Magnus Norman, Thomas Enqvist and Carlos Moyá and mixed doubles matches. The game was created and produced by Hitmaker, with Acclaim Entertainment publishing it in Europe for the PS2. This was the last Virtua Tennis game to be released for the Dreamcast following its discontinuation.

Game modes

Tournament

The player must win 5 matches played on different surfaces and venues to win a tournament. If the player performs well enough, he is challenged by either King or Queen, the game's bosses, depending whether the selected player is male or female.

Exhibition

This is a single match in which the options are customizable.

World Tour

This is the main mode of the game. For the first time in the Virtua Tennis series, the World Tour mode features yearly based and calendarized seasons. Users have to play and win tournaments throughout the seasons, as well as to complete training exercises, in order to progress. Also, unlike any other game in the series, the World Tour mode on Virtua Tennis 2 requires the user to play and train both a male and a female players simultaneously, who can also team up to play in mixed doubles tournaments. The user enters with a rank of 300th for both male and female players, which improves as matches and tournaments are won. In addition, the players' abilities can be improved by completing different training exercises. The focus of the training exercises are to be fun, rather than realistic. Each exercise has four levels, with the difficulty increasing progressively. By completing the hardest difficulty with a certain amount of time left or points scored, an outfit is unlocked, which players can wear in all modes.

Game Content

Playable Characters

Male

Female

SPT World Championships Tour Competitions

Reception

The Dreamcast version received "universal acclaim", while the PlayStation 2 version received "favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. In Japan, Famitsu gave the former console version a score of 31 out of 40.

Also in Japan Game Machine listed the arcade version in their December 1, 2001 issue as the seventh-most successful arcade game of the month.[1]

Notes and References

  1. Game Machine's Best Hit Games 25 – TVゲーム機ーソフトウェア (Video Game Software). ja. Game Machine. Amusement Press, Inc.. 647. December 1, 2001. 17.