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Sega Superstars Tennis is a tennis video game developed by Sumo Digital and published by Sega. The game was released on March 17, 2008 in Europe, on March 18, 2008 in North America, and on March 27, 2008 in Australia. The game includes 16 playable characters and 10 courts from Sega franchises. In total, 15 Sega franchises are represented in the game.
Gameplay
Superstar Mode allows the player to play missions which include exhibition matches, tournaments and tasks based around a specific Sega game including Sonic the Hedgehog, Puyo Pop and Virtua Cop. Completing missions unlocks items such as courts, stages, soundtracks and characters.
Exhibition Mode offers the chance to challenge a character to a match on one of many courts, including Sonic's home court of Green Hill Zone, or Amigo's Carnival Park court. Whichever court is chosen, there are a host of Sega celebrities cheering them on from court side.
Tournament Mode allows the player to play in a series of matches against opponents chosen at random by the computer in an arena also chosen at random.
There are several playable minigames in Sega Superstars Tennis, including ones from Sega games such as a House of the Dead meets Space Invaders game, in which the player has to hit moving targets in the form of zombies, a Space Harrier game, a Puyo Puyo game, and a Virtua Cop game.
Each character has their own unique 'special attack' giving the player more chance of scoring a point. For example: Gilius throws a magic bottle in the air and covers the opponent's side with thunderbolts, if they touch one the character will be stunned for a brief moment, or Sonic's signature "Super Sonic" attack, which causes the tennis ball to zig-zag in various directions around the court when he hits the ball.
The court design for Green Hill Zone.
Characters
* Sonic the Hedgehog
* Miles "Tails" Prower
* Amy Rose
* Dr. Eggman
* Shadow the Hedgehog
* Alex Kidd
* Gilius Thunderhead (from Golden Axe)
* Beat (from Jet Set Radio)
* Gum (from Jet Set Radio)
* Ulala (from Space Channel 5)
* Pudding (from Space Channel 5)
* Amigo (from Samba de Amigo)
* NiGHTS (from Nights into Dreams...)
* Reala (from Nights into Dreams...)
* Aiai (from Super Monkey Ball)
* Meemee (from Super Monkey Ball)
Sonic playing against Ulala
Reception
Sega Superstars Tennis has received generally mixed, but overall positive reviews. Eurogamer praised the game for its fan service and gave it 7/10. Games Magazine Official Nintendo Magazine UK reviewed both the Wii and DS versions of the game, saying they both had great gameplay, fun minigames and were enjoyable in multiplayer. However the game just missed out on a Gold Award (which is given to games that score 90% or higher in their reviews) due to the lack to Nintendo Wi-Fi support and blasted Sega for the omission due to Wi-Fi being supported on the Xbox and PS3, commenting that as Nintendo Wi-Fi had already proven it's capabilities with other games, it appeared that Sega simply couldn't be bothered to include it. IGN called the Wii version "a tennis game that should have been better than it is." They criticized the lack of detail in the graphics, the muffled sound effects, simplistic gameplay, and the lack of an online mode, which is present in the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions.
At GameRankings, the average review score for the game was:
* Wii = 72.2
* PS2 = 71.4
* PS3 = 69.0
* X360= 68.6
* DS = 65.2
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