In an attempt to keep up momentum, SEGA Superstar Tennis is clearly looking to emulate this and trying to repeat the success of one of the best selling games in Europe this year: Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. However, the title has not just been limited to Nintendo -- the title is available for the Wii, DS, PS3 and Xbox360. Owing to the vast amount of platforms that SEGA have worked on for this title, it’s clear that at least one of the platforms will suffer.
Unfortunately, it would seem that the DS version is the platform to miss out on the polish that many SEGA games have recently. The polish is not missed out on the obvious things though. SEGA have clearly put a lot of effort into making the graphics on the Nintendo DS version top quality. It’s hard to tell the difference between the Wii and DS cut-scenes at the start of the game, and the voice acting sounds identical as well.
Not to mention the fact that the courts or “zones” that are played on are all of a fantastic quality. The graphics are all vibrant and well crafted. It only takes a glance to see where the tennis ball is, if the ball is on target and where your character is amongst the other characters and colourful backdrop.
As touched upon, the audio quality top-notch with all of the voice acting at a very high quality, in terms of acting and delivery. One substantial issue with many DS games is that the music sounds “tinny”, yet this couldn’t be further from the truth with Superstar Tennis. The same quality is also extended to the zones, courts, sound effects and introduction music.
However, where the game starts to lack a little is in terms of gameplay. In an attempt to capitalize on the success of the lack of gameplay in Mario and Sonic at the Olympics, Superstar Tennis only has three main options: Quick Play, Single Player and Multiplayer. Quick Play is exactly as it sounds, just hit that option and you’ll start playing a random match and Multiplayer mode – which isn’t online, the player battles against other people with a DS. Then there’s the Single Player mode, where the majority of the game lies.
Inside of Single Player are three further modes: Match, Tournament and Games. Again, the names of the modes are pretty self-explanatory: Match is a simple match where the player decides the options. Tournament mode is really the area that the player will spend the most time, as it’s essentially all the game actually consists of. Finally there is Games, which is simply an area for missions and special attacks. This might sound like a lot of options, but in reality they have little content and unless the player really enjoys tennis, many of the modes will be forgotten, as they’re simply the other modes with slight changes to them.
There are two optional ways of playing Superstar Tennis: there’s the traditional D-Pad and then there’s the option of using the stylus. There are many different games out there that use the stylus really well, Animal Crossing, Phantom Hourglass, The Sims 2 Castaway, and Another Code: Two Memories (Trace Memory) are just a few examples. However, Superstar Tennis is not a game that will ever fall into that category.
The biggest problem it that the games takes place on the top screen, and by using the touch screen it’s hard to be accurate. The controls are sluggish and unresponsive which makes using the stylus prohibitive. Fortunately, the D-Pad is fast, responsive and makes playing the game much more enjoyable.
SEGA Superstar Tennis is clearly a “look at us” style of game that Nintendo has been pulling off with all of the Mario spin-offs for years, showcasing some of the best-known and well-loved characters from the many years of SEGA. They’re not wrong in doing it either; SEGA is one of the few companies that have the history and number of unique intellectual properties to actually pull it off. However, unlike Nintendo, SEGA have merely rehashed a collection of loved characters into a poor Virtua Tennis game.
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