Personal Rating: "Get it whilst on a decent sale"
Traditional Rating: 6/10
Platform: PC
Genre: Sport Simulation

Sega lets you deck it out on the world's tennis court circuit with some of the biggest names in the sport. Starting as a complete newbie it's up to the player to rise the ranks of the top tennis player listings and go for all four big grand-slam wins to become tennis champion of the world.

I was a little disappointed that you could not select any of the world's top tennis players as your character but given the context of the actual game the idea is that you rise the ranks not start immediately at pole position. Virtua Tennis 4 employs a board game style grid complete with dice rolls. Often you will find you don't have a particular roll (or ticket as its referred to in game) so you will miss some of the more interesting squares on the board. Whilst I realize this was trying to add an element of strategy to the game it really doesn't work in a tennis simulator. After I had gone around the board a few times (represented in years) I was honestly fed up with the game mechanics.

I did, however, really enjoy the myriad of mini-games on display that are designed to increase your skill level and incrementing in levels each time you get enough training points, these mini-games get incredibly challenging the higher the level you go.

I didn't find any of the big name stars onboard very challenging with most having a play pattern that is easily recognizable which lead me to eventually winning all four grand-slams repeatedly. The game does have multiplayer but you are forced to work your way through the dreadful Games for Window Live in order to hook up with some other real life players and of the players I did match up with it was very clear some of them were hacking and cheating with their tennis chars zooming around the court like a superhero. I just don't understand this logic - are you really that hopeless a gamer that you need to cheat against other players? Perhaps gaming really is not for you and you should just go and pick apples instead.

Virtua Tennis 4 graphics are not bad but they are not particularly good either and some of the animations are very stiff. The audio is what you would expect from a tennis game with the crowd cheering during all the climaxes. I wouldn't pay full price for this as its certainly not the best tennis simulator to grace the PC. The mini-games are incredibly fun though and should you wish to pick up this title it would be wise to get it on a decent sale.

Another Virtua Tennis! A fun game if played together with family/friends! I don't quite like carrer game... and my save game is lost if not connecting to GFWL :( has to restart after finishing the mode.

I played VT2 so I think It's a lot improvement. No skills required to play, but you'll need some time to be able to understand it.

Overall 3.5/5

I have always loved the Virtua Tennis games.

id recommend this game to people who dont know or care about real tennis. if u like sim-tennis this game is not even close, and in my opinion the worst virtua tennis game mechanics of all time. Play styles in this game are MADDENINGLY RIGID. you pick a play style like strong backhand and yes you do hav a strong backhand, but every other shot is terrible. for example........ try winning using roger federer (serve volley(?)) against anyone (online or offline) on anything other than the easiest difficulties, without coming to the net! impossible.....

career mode is just about as arcade as it gets

people who dont mind all the above reasons i dont like it may like this game but i cant recommend it. grand slam tennis 2 is EASILY the worst tennis game ever ever played and VT4 isnt hugely better. in a nutshell if u dont mind terribly rigid unrealistic tennis games with abominable randomisation in career mode then this game is for you. but tennis simmers keep far far away. SMASH COURT 2, FULL-ACE, TENNIS ELBOW, THE TOP SPIN'S ---- great games even VT 2009 I think had good gameplay but again horrible career mode

Since when is a match 2 games in just 1 set? It is even more ridiculous that no option is there to change that. The career mode is a random board game, try to present that to a player in real life to organize his season... and run with chickens around to improve your defense... Those minigames are so lame... It can amuse a child of 8, it doesn't amuse older gamers. it is way to arcade, way to childish and way to easy. Oh and you are a starting club player but Nadal contacts you to be his partner on the Australian open... right...
Great Courts 2 on Amiga was better then this.

How could you say something positive if the rules of the tennis are already not respected. Matches of 1 set with 2 games in it don't exist... I don't know why they bother making crap like this.

You want a wonderful Tennis game get Tennis Elbow that has 3000 players and 300 tournaments you can choose Yearly from! It's on greenlight on steam.