Virtua Tennis 4 hits the 360, PS3, Wii, and PC on May 10, 2011 (May 14, 2011 for EU). When that day comes, PS3 owners will get a great little handful of exclusive content not available to 360/Wii/PC players. I can only hope that the 360 gets similar treatment and receives its own set of exclusives, since I don’t have a PS3, but I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. I am desperately eager for this game to come out; with a little over a month still to go, time seems to be passing more and more slowly.
If I had to pick one sports game to play for the rest of my life, chances are high that game would be Virtua Tennis on the SEGA Dreamcast. Virtua Tennis was, in my opinion, an absolutely perfect digital tennis experience. Whenever I bring out my Dreamcast, Virtua Tennis is the first game I load up almost every time (when I don’t load up Virtua Tennis, I load up either Crazy Taxi or Power Stone 2). I’ll be honest, though; I have not played Virtua Tennis 2 or Virtua Tennis 3. I had no need to go any further. Now, with the ability to use Kinect/Move as well as regular controllers, Virtua Tennis 4 is offering enough of a significant change in the series for me to get really excited.
I know, you don’t care about any of that, you just want to hear about the exclusives. Well, here they are:
- Playable Character – Boris Becker (Fomer World #1, Olympic Gold medalist, six-time Grand Slam singles champion, and at 17, the youngest ever men’s singles winner at Wimbledon.)
- Playable Character – Stefan Edberg (Former World #1, six-time Grand Slam singles champion, three-time Grand Slam men’s doubles champion.)
- Playable Character – Pat Rafter (Former World #1, two-time US Open singles winner, two time Wimbledon runner-up, first man in the Open Era to win Toronto, Cincinnati, and US Opens in the same year.)
- Mini Game – Pin Crusher (Scatter bowling pins on the opposite side of the court using only your serve.)
- Mini Game – Net Blitz (Return served balls into nets on the opposite side of the court. The nets grow smaller as your score increases.)
Not enough? A third mini game is in development for PlayStation Home Central Plaza. If your score is high enough, you’ll be able to get your hands on it May 22, 2011, timed to release at the same time the French Open starts.
For more information on Virtua Tennis 4, check out SEGA’s website.
