Hot Shots sports games make me feel somewhat nostalgic. With their simple set-up, cutesy graphics and over-excited characters, they remind of the old sports titles, Capcom used to make. Whether it was baseball, football, soccer or tennis, you could be assured of silly little animations, easy to handle controls and a generally fun time. And they didn't require nearly as much attention as the more complicated “authentic” sports titles, where you have to deal with lineups, training, plays... You know all that useless garbage.
Granted, Sony Computer Entertainment America's Hot Shots series has superior graphics to the Capcom games of yesteryear. In the Hot Shots Golf games you can watch your childish-looking Anime character do a little dance when he or she gets a birdie or curse at a triple bogey. And when you hit a long drive, you can watch the sweat fly off your caddie as she barrels toward your ball 240 yards away.
And now you can enjoy the same in Hot Shots Tennis. There's nothing groundbreaking here by any means, but it's certainly fun. You can play with up to three friends, practice shots in the training mode (which is often more taxing than the games itself) and compete in the Hot Shots Challenge to raise your characters' rank and take on the world. In the challenge mode, you can also unlock other characters, outfits and new courts to play on.
The gameplay is rather basic. You can volley, slice, smash, lob etc. using the different buttons and aim your shots with the right analog stick. Some opponents are more difficult than others and some tennis courts make the ball bounce weird, but essentially if you just keep hitting the ball to the opposite corners each time, your opponent will eventually miss it. Though, sometimes your opponent will get off some B.S. shot which will be impossible to return. But for the most part the game is a relaxing diversion and doesn't require too much effort. In fact, at times when I was playing a doubles match, I would zone out and my computer partner would still win the game.
It's also entertaining to watch your character smash the ball, especially if you knock one of the ridiculous-looking players unconscious with your shot. Of course, I once knocked out my partner, Big Chief, a behemoth adorned in war paint who seems like he was created in a pre-politically correct world.
He over-emphasizes the “How” in his quips, “How do you like that?” and “How's it going partner?” And when he wins a game, he yells “Yeehaw!” and performs a little rain dance, or some such thing. You can unlock a cowboy outfit for Big Chief, but then he looks more like some sort of cartoonish Mexican villain. It's embarrassingly impressive how SCEA manages to shoehorn two separate ethnic stereotypes into a single character. And it pains me to use him but he's got a killer serve!
And on the whole it was a worthwhile experience. Sure, it maybe doesn't measure up in quality and look of the more professional sports title, such as Top Spin. But I could play as a little blonde girl who'd occasionally grunt when she went for a shot, so I could pretend she was Maria Sharapova.
WHAM! Rating: |
7.0 out of 10 |
ESRB Rating: |
E (Everyone) |
Official Web Site: |
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