Sega Delivers for PSP, Announces Virtua Tennis
Glory of glories. Dreamcast legacy refuses to die.
It’s a funny old game, the games industry. Sony killed off Sega’s Dreamcast. It did it by making false promises about the future offerings of its PlayStation 2, convincing the mainstream with consummate ease that it should wait for the new hardware, rather than adopting the Naomi-based glory box Sega brought to market.
As it turned out, it would be two years before the PlayStation 2 could rival the Dreamcast’s quality in quantity, but by then it was too late. The Dreamcast hadn’t sold whereas the PlayStation had seen fighting in the streets during its pre-launch clamour.
So in context, it seems somewhat strange to see a Dreamcast killer app running on a once-unthinkable Sony handheld. Yet this is the case, as today Sega US announced Virtua Tennis World Tour for the PSP.
The code is ported from the PlayStation 2 version of VT2, and the game will bear some resemblance to the Dreamcast port of 2002, with World Tour, Exhibition and Tournament modes left intact, albeit complimented with glorious four-player Wi-Fi.
"Virtua Tennis on PSP successfully combines the legendary gameplay of the Virtua Tennis range with great new features designed for the gamer on the go," commented the recently promoted Matt Woodley, creative director of SEGA. "Add to that a roster of licensed players and the game looking gorgeous on the PSP’s amazing screen and you’ve got what I believe is a must-have title."
Quite.
Enjoy these screens for now and we’ll bring you impressions in the coming days.
As it turned out, it would be two years before the PlayStation 2 could rival the Dreamcast’s quality in quantity, but by then it was too late. The Dreamcast hadn’t sold whereas the PlayStation had seen fighting in the streets during its pre-launch clamour.
So in context, it seems somewhat strange to see a Dreamcast killer app running on a once-unthinkable Sony handheld. Yet this is the case, as today Sega US announced Virtua Tennis World Tour for the PSP.
The code is ported from the PlayStation 2 version of VT2, and the game will bear some resemblance to the Dreamcast port of 2002, with World Tour, Exhibition and Tournament modes left intact, albeit complimented with glorious four-player Wi-Fi.
"Virtua Tennis on PSP successfully combines the legendary gameplay of the Virtua Tennis range with great new features designed for the gamer on the go," commented the recently promoted Matt Woodley, creative director of SEGA. "Add to that a roster of licensed players and the game looking gorgeous on the PSP’s amazing screen and you’ve got what I believe is a must-have title."
Quite.
Enjoy these screens for now and we’ll bring you impressions in the coming days.
Companies:
SEGA
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Comments
LUPOS 10 May 2005 15:29
1/11
this article is like the titanic of news.... you use all these strong emotions to get me all chocked up before you even get to the news... which really isnt that exciting... yea i cried a little when they canned the DC but you don't have to keep reminding me of it... BASTARDS... mmmbbooooohooohooo....
oh, and if i had any intention of buying psp this woudl be great news... propably the most exciting game i have seen for the shiny little brick thus far. (sad as that is)
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oh, and if i had any intention of buying psp this woudl be great news... propably the most exciting game i have seen for the shiny little brick thus far. (sad as that is)
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kid_77 10 May 2005 15:40
2/11
LUPOS wrote:
propably the most exciting game i have seen for the shiny little brick thus far. (sad as that is)
Not a Wipeout fan? It's all I ever dreamed it would be.
Virtua Tennis could well be worth a look, so long as I can convince some mates to get one too... virtua tennis was always at it's best in multiplayer.
Perhaps the Gameboy emulator will lure a few?
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LUPOS 10 May 2005 16:05
3/11
kid_77 wrote:
Not a Wipeout fan? It's all I ever dreamed it would be.
actually i enjoy wipe out alot. and i really liek the addition of absorbing weapons for health... it had a nice layer of srategy to a fairly strigh forward racer/shooter.
however i always preffered the spinning into your enemy fun that is f-zero 64... and virtua tennis was one of those games that i had no erthly idea iw oudl lie that much... i dont give tocraps fro tennis... but i could play that game for a looong time.
on a barely related note... decathalete for the saturn was a similar kind of magic. never has tapping the same btton over and over really fast been more fun. stupid blisters.
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NiktheGreek 10 May 2005 20:32
4/11
Hmm, they want me to buy Virtua Tennis 2 again? The prospect of 4-player wireless matches are too good to pass up, so I guess I'll have to. This is hereby added to Nik's PSP wishlist, which also includes Twisted Metal, Wipeout Pure, Lumines and Ridge Racers.
The people at Sumo Digital are doing the honours for this, so the conversion should be pretty damned solid if OutRun 2 is anything to go by.
The people at Sumo Digital are doing the honours for this, so the conversion should be pretty damned solid if OutRun 2 is anything to go by.
vault 13 11 May 2005 00:23
5/11
LUPOS wrote:
oh, and if i had any intention of buying psp this woudl be great news... propably the most exciting game i have seen for the shiny little brick thus far. (sad as that is)
This coming from the man who defended the quality of Brute Force. I think he almost thought it was going to be Halo with a squad of 4. This is also the same man who has an unhealthy obsession with Shenmue and the swedish pop travesty ABBA.
His credibility is severely gimped by those facts and those facts are the truth. I read it on the internet so it must be true!
This coming from the man who defended the quality of Brute Force. I think he almost thought it was going to be Halo with a squad of 4. This is also the same man who has an unhealthy obsession with Shenmue and the swedish pop travesty ABBA.
His credibility is severely gimped by those facts and those facts are the truth. I read it on the internet so it must be true!
LUPOS 11 May 2005 22:02
6/11
vault 13 wrote:
This coming from the man who defended the quality of Brute Force. I think he almost thought it was going to be Halo with a squad of 4. This is also the same man who has an unhealthy obsession with Shenmue and the swedish pop travesty ABBA.
His credibility is severely gimped by those facts and those facts are the truth. I read it on the internet so it must be true!
oh thats your game is t mr real life friend?
i love shenmue... at the tender age of 5 i loved abba (one of my mothers favorite things to tell new people) and i bought brute force before it had any reviews in a pathetic hope that it would relieve soem of the halo one monotony... it was a sevear error in judgment.
my friend mr. vault however is a 24 (soon to be 25) yer old virgin, with an unhealthy obsesion with bjork, a distaste for jessica simpson (looks alone, we all knwo shes dumb as a post) and an amazing ability to match dress slacks with dress shoes whiel wearing a bjork t-shirt and a studded leather belt... all topped off with a pageboy hat that he probably stole from a homeless geriatirc...
my tatse may not be inline with that of the masses... but you my friend walk to the beat of a different citar player!
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LUPOS 11 May 2005 22:05
7/11
kid_77 wrote:
Perhaps the Gameboy emulator will lure a few?
am i the only one who find the relitive ease with which that was created a little suspect?
i mean it took several months to get linux up and running on an xbox and that is widely recognized as liek the easiest hack ever...this thing has been out less than 6 months and there is home made software that plays nintenod roms... suspect to say the least!
vault 13 12 May 2005 01:12
8/11
That was cold dawg,... cold.
And that's sitar with an s. Your spelling acumen is on par with that of a wood beetle. Yeah I said it, wood beetle.
And that's sitar with an s. Your spelling acumen is on par with that of a wood beetle. Yeah I said it, wood beetle.
kid_77 12 May 2005 08:15
9/11
LUPOS wrote:
am i the only one who find the relitive ease with which that was created a little suspect?
It's certainly a big jump from the screen-saver and Super Mario World demo.
Are you suggesting it's an inside job? Possibly, but it's a very primitive emulator. No sound, no file selector (the games have to be named ROM.GB) and no saves (looks like I won't be re-starting Links Awakening then).
Maybe the developer is just a fscking genious :)
tyrion 12 May 2005 11:34
10/11
LUPOS wrote:
i mean it took several months to get linux up and running on an xbox and that is widely recognized as liek the easiest hack ever...this thing has been out less than 6 months and there is home made software that plays nintenod roms... suspect to say the least!
Figure out bytecode: 5 months,
Write compiler: 3 weeks,
Strip down existing emulator: 6 days,
Recompile and test: 1 day,
Play GB roms on PSP: Timeless.
kid_77 12 May 2005 13:17
11/11
tyrion wrote:
Figure out bytecode: 5 months,
Write compiler: 3 weeks,
Strip down existing emulator: 6 days,
Recompile and test: 1 day,
Play GB roms on PSP: Timeless.
Write compiler: 3 weeks,
Strip down existing emulator: 6 days,
Recompile and test: 1 day,
Play GB roms on PSP: Timeless.
Sounds like a Mastercard advert :)