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God you guys chill out!Of course the game will have normal modes. Are you insane?
You should all stop being so nit-picky about this game. First Person view and motion controls are just like the Spin-Dash for Sonic 2. Honestly you guys, such whiners.
Our brief hands-on with the title gave us the chance to take to the court in a match between Roger Federer and Andy Murray.Walking onto the court--which appeared to at least for demo purposes be locked to clay and hardcourt surfaces--we looked around to admire our legions of adoring fans. The game’s 3D implementation looked reasonable with the net protruding from the foreground. Leaping straight into the action we spent our first game on the serving side, lobbing the ball into the air with a single wrist flick and using a quick downstroke to indicate we wanted it to rocket towards our opposition. Nothing in the basic service and returning mechanics should be foreign to anyone who has played Wii Sports previously. Faster wrist snaps from the peak of our arm arc put a bit more force into our serves, while an on-screen speed indicator gave us the chance to track how quickly we were getting it down the other end.Our game included only the primary Move peripheral, with no Navigation (formerly called the Move Sub controller) attachment present. As a result, we didn’t manually move our character around the screen as we would with an analog stick, but the game did a good job of automatically shifting our character to keep us within striking distance without cramping our style. Returning the ball was as simple as swinging as you would in real life, though we noticed that while late swings were punished by usually missing the ball, early arm extensions were much more forgiving, getting it over the net, but missing the crucial power to make the other player really work for it.Once we had nailed the timing, matches were slugged out from the baseline with neither player venturing towards the net. You will be able to get closer by simply taking steps towards the PlayStation Eye camera. Like previous games in the Virtua Tennis series, the action is from a third-person perspective, though in this title when you wind up for a shot, or attempt to return service, the game will drop into first-person mode with the racket becoming your only visible element as it hovers in midair.Ironically, while the title represents a natural extension of the real-world abilities most people are likely to have experienced at some point in their life, the learning curve on returning balls felt a little bit steep. Advanced players will be able to add slice, backspin, and other tennis stroke mainstays simply by aiming in the intended direction and using the wrist movements associated with the shotAll of the gestures we used to play the game felt natural, though we are concerned about the potential to knock over household items around the lounge room or give doubles partners blackeyes with errant flailing. Virtua Tennis 4 is currently slated for a summer 2011 release.
If you've never been convinced that 3D is going to change anything in gaming, Virtua Tennis 4 is proof to the contrary – the change in perspective from top-down tennis to player's-eye-view seems designed to show off the effect. Impressive as it is, though, I can't tell whether it helps you to actually play better; that judgement will have to be reserved for long-term play. And it's worth remembering that for the 98% of people who aren't even considering buying a 3D TV, it won't matter either way. The Move integration is another matter. It changes everything, not only how you play the game, but how you'll want to play it. VT2009 felt like a half-step compared to this. Motion control is finally being applied in ways that work, and it's accurate enough now to be more than a novelty. It's a shame that such a lot of bad will has been built up around it in the gaming community, because it's got more potential for traditional games now than it's ever had.
