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NonBorn
15-06-2007, 21:12
Hot Shots Tennis

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In the world of PlayStation golf games, there are two reigning kings - Tiger Woods and Hot Shots. Whereas EA's Tiger series strives to find the perfect balance between arcade and simulation play, Hot Shots Golf is lighthearted through and through, what with big-headed characters who run at 1,164mph after the ball.

After having successfully hit the links a number of times now, the series is expanding its repertoire a bit by hitting the tennis courts with Hot Shots Tennis. Developed by Clap Hanz exclusively for the PlayStation 2, the game shares the same basic and fundamental design elements of its golf counterpart. That is, it's colorful, charismatic, and more importantly, extremely easy to pick up and play.

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The game's shot mechanics are a combination of directional aiming and timing. Using the left analog stick, you aim in one of the nine main sections of the court (center, left center, right center, etc). Your accuracy here then depends partly on your position but mostly on your timing. If you time your shot well, you'll put the ball in the center of the quadrant. If it's late or early, it'll deviate from the center a bit, depending on how imprecise you are. And if you happen to time it perfectly, you'll end up placing the ball right on the nearest line.

Serving is very similar in nature to the volleys, except that you're only aiming in the applicable square of the court. The difference here is that timing has a much greater effect on your serve than it does on a standard shot. Hitting either early or late even the tiniest bit on a backspin shot will almost always result in a fault, even when you aim towards the center of the area, which means that you might as well always aim for one of the corners. A lighter shot is much easier to land, but they're extremely easy to return.

Hot Shots Tennis features two main modes of play, the Challenge Mode and Fun Time Tennis. Fun Time Tennis sounds like it would be your main stop here, but it's actually just an exhibition match. You can play a doubles game here and choose from a number of options, including your umpire, a variety of normal and odd courts and a couple crazy rules, like slow-motion play or unpredictable bounces. As it's an exhibition match, these games don't count towards your overall win/loss record or anything of that sort.

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Challenge Mode is where the game's progression comes into play. By winning these matches, you're able to unlock new characters, costumes, courts, umpires and more. These matches start out short and allow you to begin earning extra content immediately, which is nice.

Unfortunately though, aside from the tutorials, these two modes are your only options for play. There isn't any sort of tournament structure, progressive career or even online play, so the game looks to be geared highly towards offline multiplayer play. Fortunately, Hot Shots Tennis feature MultiTap support for up to four players at a time, and given the game's extremely friendly pick-up-and-play design, it could wind up making a great party game.

Though it doesn't look like there's a ton of meat to be found in the game, it is very promising from a multiplayer perspective. It certainly isn't as deep as something like Virtua Tennis, but that's not the point, either. Hot Shots Tennis is currently slated for release this July for the PlayStation 2.

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