The last console game in the series was Virtua Tennis 4, which was released on PS3, Vita and other platforms.
Sega's Virtua Tennis series has a long history, having started off as a much-loved arcade game before progressing to Sega Dreamcast, PS2, PS3 and other platforms.
With the enhanced technology of PS4 and PS4 Pro, and faster framerates, Top Spin 5 would be the perfect tennis game for Sony's latest console. Featuring the likes of Federer, Nadal and Andy Murray alongside licensed courts and tournaments, it boasted some great visuals, a smooth control scheme and delivered a great balance between accessibility and depth to deliver a solid tennis simulation. The last tennis game in the Top Spin franchise was 2K Sports' Top Spin 4 way back in 2011 for PS3. Playing the game is certainly satisfying for a short amount of time, but it quickly becomes repetitive to all but the most keen of tennis fans.Here are four tennis games that could make fans of the sport very happy indeed. Controls are simple and easy to master, while not being too simple that it quickly becomes boring. The graphics are very good - minus those inanimate ball boys - and the players' unique mannerisms are well captured. Reaching match point brought on the same scripted commentary in almost every match, which becomes noticeable far too quickly.ĭespite all this, Grand Slam Tennis 2 is still a good game. What is said by the commentators seems to depend on how you play - we often hit long shots deep into the court, which would cue McEnroe to explain the pros and cons of hitting long every few shots. At first it was interesting and we felt that we were learning something, but soon it became clear that the same few phrases are repeated with annoying frequency.
The commentary, while rare in tennis games, was also a disappointment.
At this point we also noticed that in approximately five hours of gaming the ball had hit the net once, and even then this error seemed to happen randomly at best.Įxperimenting with lobs and spin helped to keep the game interesting, but the fact that we could play around with random shots during a game, knowing full well that we could still win with ease, took away an aspect of challenge Grand Slam 2. No matter how far to one side of the court we hit the ball, we couldn't make it go out.
We won the Dubai open with ease and our beginners' luck continued to the Australia open, which we also won.Īfter a few hours we found that it seems to be impossible to hit the ball out of play. Winning easily - even against the best players in the world - is common for the first couple of years, but as the game progresses it becomes more difficult to win matches that were a walk in the park a few years previous. Grand Slam 2 starts off easy - as most games do - but this translates to being able to win tournaments at your first attempt when your player is supposedly low-ranking. While getting stuck into the career mode we noticed something rather strange about how the game's difficulty increases. Sadly, the ball retrievers, umpires and other people seem somewhat inanimate and bland in comparison to the players.
The courts also look good and there's a clear difference between the various surfaces on clay our player slide around when changing direction quickly and occasionally fell over when stretching for a difficult shot (triggering a gasp from the crowd) adding nicely to the realism.