Customer Reviews

Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've been a huge fan of the Hot Shots Golf franchise on PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP systems. Having played every single HSG game, I'm very familiar with the theme and the unlock structure of these games. Hot Shots Tennis follows a very similar structure since they are created by the same producer (Clap Hanz). There is one big exception -- Story mode. The single-player campaign mode is structured around a story of a world-travelling tennis star (you) visiting various locales and meeting different players. The story itself is comical and generally trivial, but it does provide a fresh presentation that enhances the overall feel of the game. Through the Story mode, you encounter opportunities to play both singles and doubles matches against AI players presented mostly at random, which I think is great. There is a slight 'sandbox' feel to this setup as well; within each location, you can roam/explore the map, find hidden bonuses, and choose which AI character to play a match against. At times you are given side quests that are not related to tennis at all, but provides interesting diversions from the 'tennis' aspect of the game.

As for the gameplay itself, the physics of striking a tennis ball is handled extremely well for both singles and doubles matches. In comparison to Virtual Tennis: World Tour on the PSP (which I've played and completed years ago), there is a much higher variety of possible outcomes when you try to hit the ball. The same goes for the AI as well. The controls are handled well, and the AI is not as 'cheap' as VT:WT, meaning the AI player does not consistently return 90% of your shots, is not able to cover the entire court with ease, and does not smash every single lob you hit as VT:WT seemed to do. One minor thing that is inferior to VT:WT is that there are NO mini-games to build your skills; all skills must be earned by playing matches with the AI, which is not really a big deal I don't think. One comment about the partner AI in doubles match - the AI is superb, moving around the court and covering open areas as you might expect in a real match. I was quite impressed that the AI seemed to know exactly when to move to the net or return to the baseline in different situations.

After trying the demo, I was not sure what to expect but I took a chance, and I am thoroughly impressed by this game now after playing about 5 hours total. One note about the game format -- the full game can be downloaded from PS store for the same price ($19.99) as the UMD version, but it requires 1.1GB of space in your memory stick. I opted for the disc version since I did not want to purchase another MS just for this game. Also, I was pleasantly surprised that the UMD includes an option to install a ~450MB file to memory stick that reduces disc reads significantly as compared to many other PSP UMD games I've played; as a result, the load times are very short.

In conclusion, I highly recommend this game to any fan of tennis or even Hot Shots Golf. If you have doubts, download the demo from the PlayStation store first. You will be hard-pressed to find another game as entertaining as this on the PSP!

This is one of the few games that I bought right away after trying the demo. The gameplay is awesome, it's really easy to get a grip of the controls. The graphics is the best part, you'll have so many different characters and tennis courts to unlock. You can buy accessories as you earn points after winning matches. The game has multiple modes you can play in. And if your friends have the same game, you can play together thru ad hoc up to 4 people. After playing a bunch of rated Teen or Mature games, it's really fun to enjoy this relaxing game.

First things first, I've never bothered (or wasted my time tbh) to write a review on Amazon for anything prior to this. With that aside, let me start by saying that I love pretty much all things tennis related. I'm a pretty serious follower, I've played for over half my life, and these things have translated into me enjoying quite a few tennis video games over the years as well.



Now on the review -

If you aren't familiar with the Hot Shots franchise (which I wasn't very muchso with at the time I bought this either), then let me give you a little idea of what to expect. The game has a cartoony feel to it, the players, courts, and even the ball look fairly childish. But don't let these facts dissuade you, underneath the silly outer shell is something much more juicy.

Another thing to note about the Hot Shots aspects of this game is that there is customization involved. Almost RPG type game aspects you could say. You level up each player's individual Loyalty (which is basically based on how much you use a player), and based on that you unlock different things, like additional item slots, extra racquets, new shot types, etc. The item customization is very deep, you can easily lose hours to trying to find better stat combinations.

Now, all the bells and whistles aside, the game as a tennis game plays quite well. I've played quite a few tennis games over the years, heres a semi short list of noteworthy games for me-

Final Match Tennis(J) - 1991 (PCE)- FMT
Super Tennis - 1991 (SNES) - ST
Mario Tennis - 2000 (N64) - MT
Top Spin 2 - 2006 (XBOX360) - TS2
Grand Slam Tennis - 2009 (Wii) - GST
Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip - 2010 (PSP)- HST:GAG

Now, with all honesty I can't say HST:GAG is the best tennis game I've ever played, but its definitely one of the best of this generation. For me, its without a doubt the best portable tennis game, and one of the best of the last 10 years.



The things I think about when I figure out how good a tennis game really is are a combination of the following-

realism (this includes a couple key aspects for me, which are player/court roster, and ball/court physics)
difficulty (this is restricted to just playing a game's AI, but still can be pretty important)
fun factor (how much a game keeps your interest, how much re-playability it has)

Now, based on this short (but key, for me determining whether I think the game is good or not) list, I'll give you an idea as to why I've probably put a few hundred hours of my time into playing this great game.

Firstly, the realism aspects may seem unimportant at first (but if you've played Grand Slam Tennis on Wii you'll kind of understand what I'm talking about here), but the more you really think about it, the more important it can become. Using GST as an example, if you've ever played it or seen youtube videos of it you'll know what I'm talking about when I say its not very realistic. The players and the ball take up much more space than a real player or ball take up on a tennis court, this results in highly unrealistic play such as people being able to camp the service line and being unlobbable/passable. That to me is not fun, playing a game that doesn't "feel" like I'm playing tennis.

HST:GAG on the other hand, does this much better, the players and ball are proportioned much more realistically in relation to the size of the court. The players in this game are all fictional, but if you look close enough, you can see some similarities between a few of them and current pro tennis players.


The next thing, difficulty, is probably the most lacking of the three for me in this game. Once you get the game down, even the hardest AI level doesn't pose much of a consistent challenge. This can become a problem if you don't have access to Ad-Hoc (like myself) which is the only way (unfortunately) of playing this game in multiplayer mode. If you desire a truly challenging AI game of tennis I suggest checking out FMT which is a Japanese game that is 20 years old. The AI in FMT is harder than 90% of the people I've played against online in tennis games over the years.


Finally, the fun factor. Like I said, though, despite the AI challenge not being as high as it could be, it keeps me coming back. I've probably logged 500+ hrs into this game and don't see a drop in enjoyment any time soon. Its a great PORTABLE source of tennis fun. And for 20USD or less, its hard to go wrong.


Now, the ending of any review is the scoring. HST:GAG is a tennis game so my scoring is based solely on that fact. I don't think its fair say, to compare this game to Final Fantasy 7, or Super Mario 64, or Metal Gear Solid. So my score is based on how this game compares to other TENNIS games and thats all. Overall, this game is my 2nd favorite tennis game (of ALL time!) so based on that I'd give it a 91/100.

If you enjoy tennis games, or are looking to try one out for the first time, I HIGHLY suggest this game, you won't be dissapointed!

Really to be honest, when i saw Hot Shots Tennis, i thought it was going to be a boring generic tennis game. But when i played the story mode(i have 7 characters unlocked so far); it turns out that it is really fun. I mean how realistic the physics are in tennis while keeping a funny cartoon atmosphere to it off the court. Throughout the whole game it has a basic RPG element, because in the places you visit there is hidden money,clothes, once you find clothes and buy clothes or rackets it upgeades your equipment level, thus each level upgrade gives you more stamina, more speed, something along those lines, also you can unlock rackets as well. The characters are auctully very unique, and if you do not like the way they look you can change their costumes, because each character has 4 spaces for different types of costumes. This game includes doubles matches, singles matches, multiplayer matches and not really much to it. But other than that my final verdict is this, it is worth 20$ dollars because of all the things you can earn, each character has different styles of play, and has their own personality. I highly recommend it, do not be intimidated by the negative viewers this game is worth it.

I love watching tennis on TV and have many tennis games, for the GBA, the Nintendo DS and the PSP. But with this game it's the first time that I could actually win a match, tho just barely. I, too, didn't like the idea of there being no training sessions, but you can also use the exhibition matches for that. I'm glad I bought this game. The last tennis game I bought was Mario Tennis for the GBA (I love Mario, and Yoshi!), but they're pretty rough on you when you mess up a tennis practice.

this is one of the funnist and great tennis game u will play its far more better then the ps2 version u get items more characters and sidequest and stuuf like that highly rcommended to tennis fans!!

This is an extremely fun game. I didn't do any multiplayer modes as I have no one to play with. But the single player story mode is incredible! I was shocked at how deep the story mode was, I put in 12 hours before finishing it. The tennis mechanics are really easy to use, but they don't feel shallow or easy. There are several characters to unlock in the story mode.

As I was playing this game, it made me want to go out and play real tennis. It's that fun. Overall I highly recommend this game to anyone.

Fondly remembering Mario Tennis on the GB before all the power-ups ruined the series, I took a chance on Hot Shots Tennis:GET A GRIP. The gamble paid off as I have not put this down for days. The controls are rock solid and built into an addictive RPG style game a la Pokemon. Almost everything about HS:GOLF titles is present from over the top characters to the loyalty system, also intact are responsive and addictive controls. The nub works great for moving your character and shots are easy to pull off with a little practice. A team of characters joins your roster as you traverse the world spreading tennis joy, and they offer different play styles and strategies as do all of the unlockables items and courts. If the powerups of Mario Tennis GCN turned you off from that series, and you found something to love in the Sega Virtua Tennis games then this one is for you. I would like a PS3 version that includes backhand shots and HD graphics in the future.

I know this game is getting great reviews here at Amazon, at ign, and elsewhere, but I myself am finding it rather underwhelming and nowhere near as playable as Sega Virtua Tennis.

I don't claim to be a gaming wizard, but I have been playing video games since the days of Colecovision (!).

After years enjoying a PS2, I have passed on the current generation of home consoles and concentrate on easy-to-pick-up, hard-to-master games on the PSP.

Thus I have a fairly intuitive means of judging how much fun a game is to play. If I look up after playing and see that a half-hour or an hour has passed, the game is great. If I look up and see that only five minutes have passed, I consider the game pretty average.

I'm sorry to say that I barely made it through one of the limited learning games in the story mode here before looking at my watch.

There's just something off about the timing or controls here; I'm not sure what it is. All I can say is, after playing a game or two of HTS:GAG, I was desperate to play some more Alien Zombie Death, a simple but highly addictive Mini game that plays like buttah.

I'll report back if I change my mind about HTS:GAG, but at the moment I would recommend it only to the most dedicated fans of deformed heads or rabid tennis buffs. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to kill me some alien zombies...