Telstra has revealed the addition of almost one million new mobile services in the six months to December 2011, but Sensis revenues plummeted 24 percent in 12 months.
When not resting, your pong playing super-star can jet off and by apparel or a new racket at ludicrous prices, does anybody really pay $3000 for a pair of sun-glasses? Or head on over to Tin Henman’s tennis ranch (which seems to be located in China), for a spot of training.
Here Henman will run you through a bunch of tough drills to boost player stats in one of three areas, Ground Strokes, Footwork and Serve & Volley. Some of them are a pain to complete, and with a tough time limit. It is easier to play against a practice opponent or take the challenge of one of the 12 mini games (see below) to boost skills.
The mini game diversions are a strange array of tennis tie-in’s. The more obvious one have your player belting the ball back against a wall of bricks, or against pirate ships, or space invader style ball machines to score points. Others involve shopping and fruit and are better off left undescribed.
Each game sets challenges based on time and/or score, completing the challenge boosts stats as well as the level of the challenge. But, and it is an annoying but, like the Tin Henman tennis ranch, failing a challenge, or indeed succeeding means dropping back out to the main World Tour spinning globe screen, with no retry option.
On the PS3 with its slow loading times, this is a pain, especially when you are trying to slog through the lower grades.
Game-play feels right, and a good tennis knowledge of court positioning, angles and timing will see you in good stead despite the simple controls. VT09 does a good job of feeling like it nails the right shot based on player body momentum and ball position.
And with limited use of the controller, a player can choose to lob, drop-shot, chip & charge or dominate the net.
With that in mind though, a good player will find little challenge for a significant portion of the World Tour. I am pretty sure I didn’t drop a point, let alone a game until ranked low in the 70’s.
The AI eventually provides a base challenge, but funnily enough, whilst each computerised player does indeed play differently, they rarely play as per their assigned skill referenced at the beginning of the match.
There is the occasional celebrity exhibition match on a cruise ship or similar, to liven things up along the way, but for the most part, rising in the ranks in order to compete against tough opponents or be considered for the Davis Cup team is a lot of work.
Instead, you might want to take your player online, and whilst lag issues may crop up, the VT09 code does an admirable job of linking up players for a one of match, or dropping them into a multiplayer version of the mini-games.
VT09 is a serviceable, errrm, serve of ummmm, virtual tennis in a modern package. In a way, the grind of the world tour out does itself in seeking to represent the hard work involved in becoming a rising star, to the point, where the early non-challenge rounds are a chore to get through.
Having played the rival Grand Slam Tennis for the Wii, I am itching to compare this game on the same platform, using the Wii MotionPlus peripheral, but for the time being that will have to wait.
David Bass
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