The Dreamcast is one of my favorite systems of all time, and in it you can find Virtua Tennis living happily without much travel. People complain about sports games, but I also think that people shouldn’t forget Video Games and their roots in Pong. Pong is based on ping-pong and tennis, so in affect Video Games started as sports games. That said, I look at games of this nature not as sports games, but as games in general. It also greatly amuses me when people completely disregard things on a matter of taste rather than actual quality. All that said, Virtua Tennis is an amazing game that has garnered support among people that dislike sports games. Tycho and Gabe loved Virtua Tennis, and I remember seeing several copies in Dreamcasts in the Bungie offices. Anyway, the point is that Virtua Tennis was a game all gamers could enjoy as long as the transcended their paradigms. I hope that Top Spin 2 can be such a game.
I’m a bit biased towards the subject since I was forced to play tennis
from the age of two, and played it in about every way I could, except
professionally. I left the professional tennis playing to my brother,
mostly because he was better. I always liked it when he didn’t allow
the other player to make a single point. In the game though, I do
dominate. I have never lost a match on a tennis video game. I’ve been
surrounded by the sport for years, and I can only hope Top Spin 2 can
deliver on the level Virtua did. I must say that I was a bit
disappointed with 1. I still loved it.. but not as much.
I
subscribe to the idea that everything is connected in one way or
another, and what some would call coincidence, I call simple proof of
this idea. Along these lines, I was struck reading that Tool interview
Triad posted because of an influence that Adam Jones (Tool’s guitarist)
lists. Adam mentions that Joe Walsh, The Eagles’ guitarist, is an
influence on 10,000 days because of the way he loves his playing,
especially in "Those Shoes." Not only that, but now the two have
talked on the phone to the point of Joe giving him tips on the effect.
By the way, you should ignore the fact that the article thinks that
Those Shoes is a Tool song. Why does this matter in the least? Well,
one of my dad’s favorite bands happens to be The Eagles. Our musical
tastes may not be as different as I thought.
