At first sight, Sega Superstars Tennis reminds us of Mario Power Tennis. The game looks colourful and happy, offers different characters from the present and past (which each have their own abilities) and you can do a superstar shot to win points in a spectacular way. We confronted Toby Allen with the similarities.

Toby Allen: “Of course, Sumo Digital looked at a lot of tennis games before we started on this project. Besides, we already have a decent amount of experience because we previously also developed Virtua Tennis 3 and Virtua Tennis World Tour. I guess you could compare the game a bit with Mario Power Tennis, but Sega wants to differentiate it by putting unique characters and their worlds into the game.”

And they sure did. Sonic The Hedgehog, AiAi from Super Monkeyball, Ulala from Space Channel 5 and Amigo from Samba De Amigo are just a couple of the sixteen playable characters. Besides the Exhibition Mode – good for a quick single or doubles game – and the Tournament Mode, the game contains about eighty minigames. For example, in Jet Set Radio you have to colour a painting on the floor by aiming the correct paint cans in the right spot. Another minigame we got to see, was based on Sega’s House of The Dead. Zombies are coming at you and you have to kill them by professionally hitting them with the tennis ball. The beginning is very easy, but they keep coming and coming and soon they will also start throwing things at you.

All minigames are played with the Wii-mote horizontally. Toby Allen states that it’s too difficult for certain target groups to use the nunchuk. An extra argument is the fact not everyone owns a nunchuk for every Wii-mote. Playing the other modes, you have three possible controls: keeping the Wii-mote as usual – like Wii Tennis -, with the Wii-mote horizontally – classic style – and a combination of the Wii-mote with the nunchuk. With the Wii-mote you can do lobs, dropshots and more, with the nunchuk you can add effect by pushing the control stick in the direction you choose.

During the match, you build the superstar status of your character. When the star underneath your feet starts to glow, the superstar shot is performable. By pushing A+B, you perform a crazy shot. A ball that’s super strong, a zigzag effect, dazzle an opponent, everything is possible because every character has is own superstar shot. These moments, the reality of Virtua Tennis is far away, but then again an absurd approach is welcome now and then, no?

If you have enough of all the tournaments and minigames, you can start playing with your friends. The Xbox360 and PS3 versions will both have online possibilities, but unfortunately, the Wii won’t. We expressed our disappointment to Toby.

Toby Allen: “The Wii isn’t developed for online games. It needs a lot more infrastructure than the DS to go online. That’s why we chose to not add online options to the Wii version.”

Auch!