Everybody’s Tennis is the first extension of Sony’s Everybody’s Sports line which started with the ever popular Everybody’s Golf also known as Hot Shots Golf in the West. It has basically taken the caricature player models from Everybody’s Golf and has placed them into what feels like a near clone of Sega’s Virtua Tennis. While not nearly as deep in terms of gameplay and content as Virtua Tennis, Everybody’s Tennis might be enough to hold you over until Sega’s next-gen tennis release.


Ninja tennis anyone?
The main mode of Everybody’s Tennis is a career mode which basically takes you through several tiers of players. From clover to feather to flower and finally to the medal tier you will play against singles and doubles of all different skill levels. Each tier has around 6 matches to play that require either you or the computer to win 4 games a piece to win. Once you win enough matches, more matches will unlock with new unique characters. Sometimes you do get rematches but the character is wearing different clothing. By winning matches you unlock the players you play against, their clothing, and the courts you play on.


Such helpful tips!

Singles Game - Video

The actual gameplay is nearly identical in style to Virtua Tennis. You have three buttons to do a weak hit, a strong hit, and a lob hit. You use the left analog stick to both move around the court and guide where you hit the ball. One unique thing that Everybody’s Tennis does add is an indicator which tells you how well you hit the ball. If you hit too early you see a rabbit over your head, if you hit too late you see a turtle, if you almost hit it perfectly you see a note, and if you hit it dead on you see a double note. Depending on how well you hit the ball it will go to where you meant it to go accordingly. So if you try to hit it into a far corner and get a turtle over your head you’ll probably hit it out of bounds but if you get a double note it will most likely hit as close to the in-bounds line as possible. While this does add a bit of freshness to the formula it also makes the game a bit easier as well since you can hit any of the swing buttons extremely early or extremely late and still pull off an ok hit.

Another thing that makes the game easier than it should be is that the ground lights up where the ball will land. It even lights up an extra spot where you can power smash the ball if it has been lobbed at you. While this might be great for non-gamers, it’s really annoyingly easy for seasoned Virtua Tennis fans. Also if a ball is far away you can dash to it and pull of some incredibly easy late shots. Put all of these “improvements” together and you’ve got a tennis game where you will rarely if ever get scored on by the computer.