March 19, 2008 - Since
its earliest days of arcade glory, SEGA has woven itself inextricably
into gaming history. With the introduction of the Genesis in the waning
years of the 1980s, the scrappy company provided an alternative to the
cutesy, ultra-nice console characters popularized by Nintendo.

Like any underdog worth its salt, SEGA has gathered in its wake an army
of diehard fans who can't get enough Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Set Radio,
Space Channel 5 and even the original SEGA mascot, Alex Kidd himself.
If you count yourself among the Sega faithful, you'll find a lot to
like in SEGA Superstars Tennis,
the latest title from Sumo Digital, the UK-based Foundation 9 studio
responsible for developing past Sega properties like Virtua Tennis 3
and OutRun 2006.

But even -- and maybe especially -- hardcore SEGA aficionados will
probably find SEGA Superstars Tennis disappointing. Although there are
16 SEGA characters to be found within its mini-games, bracketed
tournaments and, yes, even more mini-games, Superstars stops short of
delivering either a top-notch tennis party game or an all-out Sega
fan-fest.



SSST starts you off with eight playable characters from the SEGA
universe: Sonic, Tails and Dr. Eggman from the Sonic the Hedgehog
series; AiAi from Super Monkey Ball; NiGHTS; Ulala from Space Channel
5; Beat from Jet Set Radio; and Amigo from Samba de Amigo.

You can use this motley crew to jump into quick-play tennis matches,
either locally or online, or you can start whittling away at the
mini-games that form the backbone of SEGA Superstars Tennis. Although
there is a short tournament mode (I plowed through it in less than 30
minutes), there is no career mode as there would be in a standard
tennis game.

Most of your time will be spent playing mini-games in a variety of
different SEGA-themed areas. Here, you'll unlock new characters -- like
Gilius the non-textured Golden Axe dwarf, Pudding from Space Channel 5
and Alex Kidd -- and open new mini-game areas. At first, making your
way through the loosely tennis-based games is fun, but many of the
stages drag on and the countless variations on the same themes begin to
drag quickly.

Some of the stages use their namesakes fairly well, challenging you to
use your button-pressing skills to achieve objectives in a manner
appropriate to the theme of the stage. In the Super Monkey Ball stage
for example, you're charged with knocking monkey balls through gates by
serving tennis balls at them.


Tennis at its zaniest.


A few of the stages are standouts that I found especially fun, at least
at first. There's a PuyoPop Fever area that requires you to clear Puyos
within a given time period, and the House of the Dead stage (although
curiously named "Curien Mansion" instead) lets you serve tennis balls
at shuffling zombies.

But some mini-game stages are either extremely dull (Jet Set Radio), or
completely irrelevant. The Golden Axe stage doesn't take place in Yuria
at all but rather recycles the zombie-infested tennis court behind the
Curien Mansion. The Space Harrier stage could have been the best part
of SSST but is plagued by targeting problems and other strange choices.

Although some of these stages, available in a menu called Planet
Superstars, are made up entirely of mini-games, others are straight
three-match tennis tournaments or individual singles and doubles
matches. If plowing through a mountain of repetitive mini-games on
goofy tennis courts sounds like your thing and you've been dying for an
opportunity to apply Virtua Tennis-style gameplay to a SEGA-themed
party game, don't get your wallet out just yet.

Sumo Digital could have gone one of two ways with the controls of
Superstars. They could have retained the console control scheme of
Virtua Tennis 3, in which specialized strokes like slices and lobs were
controlled by hitting individual face buttons. Or, they could have gone
the Wii Sports tennis route and assigned all strokes to a single input
type.

Instead, they split the difference. On the Xbox 360 controller, regular
ground strokes are controlled by the A button; fast shots are
controlled by the X button; lobs are initiated by tapping A and then
quickly tapping X; and drop shots are made by doing the opposite --
hitting X and then quickly tapping A. It's a silly control scheme that
adds unnecessary complexity to the game for casual players and limits
the pace of the game for those more experienced.

It's an unfortunate control choice, and Superstars does not allow
advanced controller mapping, so you're basically stuck with the
two-button configuration. But at least I can choose whether I want the
umpire's voice to be male or female...



Gilius has a mean slice.


One of Superstars' calling cards is its Superstar State function,
which, when activated, allows the characters to turn into even zanier
versions of themselves (Sonic becomes a super-fast Super Sonic, for
example). Practically, though, most Superstar powers are fairly useless
against AI players, and the ones that do actual damage to your opponent
are extremely annoying to play against in one-on-one matches. Luckily,
you can turn the function off, an option I quickly took advantage of.

Superstars has a strong multiplayer function that works well both
online and offline. Mini-games and matches can be played with 1-4
players locally or online, and Sumo resurrected the TV function from
Virtua Tennis 3 to allow online players to watch highlights and live
matches from around the world in real-time.

In my online experience, the game ran respectably, with only a moderate
amount of lag during play. Facing off against human opponents, either
on your couch or over the Interwebs, is the best thing about
Superstars. But the gimped control scheme dilutes even that experience,
making the overall multiplayer somewhat dull.


Security here is tighter than at Wimbledon.

Closing Comments
In theory,
there's nothing wrong with the idea of a whimsical tennis game
featuring classic SEGA characters. In practice, it's a bit of a yawn
that ends up feeling like a barely good enough cash-in. The
environments and characters are largely well-done, but the control
scheme and dull mini-games drag SEGA Superstars Tennis down.

IGN Ratings for SEGA Superstars Tennis (X360)



RatingDescription

out of 10
7.0	Presentation SEGA fans could argue for hours about which characters should have been included in SSST. But Sumo did a good job of using the ones it chose and arranged a well-orgainzed game around them.
6.0	Graphics Superstars is colorful and bright, but there are framerate problems here and there and some characters just don't work without textures (I'm talking about you, Gilius).
7.0	Sound If unlocking countless music tracks in mini-game after mini-game is your idea of the perfect Sunday, then this game is for you. From OutRun to NiGHTS, it's all here.
6.0	Gameplay Fun with friends but pretty dull otherwise. The controls are problematic, and the mini-games are mostly a bore. But unlocking classic characters and stages can be a kick.
7.0	Lasting Appeal With its multiple online modes and more than 100 mini-games, Superstars has a lot to offer. You'll have to pick and choose, but there's fun to be had with Sonic and friends.
6.4 Passable	OVERALL (out of 10 / not an average)