#selfietennis is a fun and creative virtual reality game. It isn’t the most realistic (at all), but it maintains good physics and easy gameplay, making it a perfect virtual reality game for beginners and youngsters. It has easy to love graphics with lovable tennis ball characters that are the least intimidating characters since Michael Scott from NBC’s The Office. There isn’t much to this game, but it is a quick and lovable scene.
In this game review of #selfietennis, we will be diving into every part of the game that VR Unicorns has to offer. The developing studio did a fantastic job incorporating a handful of different features inside of the game. None of them went unnoticed, but not all of them made it a perfect little experience either. The game is functional and fun, but far from a finished product.
Getting Up and Running
This game is one of the smallest virtual reality games you will find on Viveport, Steam, or even Oculus. This game isn’t meant to be a story game and there isn’t even a menu. It is pure fabricated tennis, and that is what makes it so fun. It is only 500 MB, and because of the small file size, you can download this game in either 3 seconds or 10 minutes, just depending on what your internet speed is.
If you get this game through Oculus or Viveport, the file will be located inside of the app. If you don’t, and you decide to buy this game for $10 in Steam (which we don’t recommend), you will have to choose where the file goes. In this case, the file will likely have chosen its own spot locally and finished downloading before you had a chance to choose a file to download to. Because this game is so small, it won’t impact you to keep it in your library as an intro to VR game for your young friends and older buddies.
Type of Game
There are a lot of sports games that put a twist on itself inside of virtual reality, and #selfietennis is one of them. Sports simulator simply throws you in a sports game. #selfietennis do that at all. While it does throw you in a sports game relatively fast, it isn’t a game with regular rules and regular ideas. Tennis inside of virtual reality can often get you motion sick because of the movement that it forces upon you, but Unicorn Studios took a completely different route. You aren’t playing tennis against the AI or online players. You are playing against and with yourself.
In this game, the goal is to see how many volleys you can hit and return. In the boxes on the court you can see what your total is. each time you hit the ball near or over the net, you are teleported over to the other side in perfect position to return the ball back. In the midst of all of this, crazy happens. Every time you press the trigger, you get a new racket. That means you can throw or release your racket whenever. What we found fun was hitting the tennis ball characters in the game off the ledge and while they run past you. It gets you points and it also makes the game a lot more interesting. There was new er a full moment inside of this game, but it wasn’t one you will be running back to because of the lack of story.
Player Perspective
You will be in first-person perspective in this game, and it is obvious to check that. Press the top button on your controller and your selfie stick will appear in your hand. You can check yourself out, snap come pictures, and even lay tennis with self stick in hand. This is what the game was named after, but it isn’t a quality that is overwhelming in the game. There isn’t another perspective you would want to play VR tennis in, so this one was nailed out of the park.
Theme and Story – Score: 3/10
There is zero story in this game, but the theme is overwhelming in the best way possible. You are constantly bombarded in this game with love from the tennis ball characters, but it often gets annoying. This leads to you hitting them with the ball, the rackets, and often times both. It doesn’t make much sense to not add a story here, but for only $10, you aren’t missing out on too much with no story in this game.
Controls – Score: 8/10
For a game with no menu or story, it was impressive to see the amount of controls in this game and the versatility they held. Press the trigger to receive new balls and rackets, press the top buttons to activate the selfie stick, and press the lower buttons to get the ball and racket to switch hands. The controls worked quickly and effectively, and they even made perfect sense to have. They were never in the way and they were perfectly placed. This might have been the best part of the game.
Music and Sound – Score: 5/10
There was some background music in this game, but it wasn’t anything overbearing. The developers knew that the game wasn’t going to be known for their sound, so they hesitated to make this game over done with sound. With that being said, it would’ve been nice to hear a little more creative music. As for the sound effects, you aren’t going to find anything more prefect to represent a living tennis ball getting hit by a tennis racket at blazing speeds. It was perfectly done and some fun will be had from the noises these characters make.
Player Movement – Score: 5/10
You aren’t responsible for any movement in this game aside from turning your head in this game. One of the catchlines in the bio of the game is that there is “NO MOTION SICKENSS” from this game. Although that mostly holds true, you need to adjust for a few minutes. Each time you hit the ball, you are tossed to the other side of the court. It is usually good placement, but nothing to go crazy about. They didn’t incorporate any manual player movement, which is going to slightly hurt their score.
Kinetosis – Score: 7/10
This game was very mindful of how much movement they provided. Because there was no manual player movement in this game, you aren’t going to see anything that your body isn’t feeling. You are teleporting often, but you get used to it quickly and don’t think anything of it early on in your time in this game. Expect to leave this game feeling great.
Environment and Immersion – Score: 5/10
The characters in this game are the furthest thing from real, but the detail is oddly convincing in this game. You are floating high in the sky on a tennis court that has some stunning graphics on it. The sounds everything makes keeps immersed enough, but it isn’t anything that is going to blow you out of the water. It is a fun game, but you won’t be convinced to stay in the game too long.
Overall – Score: 5.5/10
This game is only $10, but we don’t recommend buying the full versions unless you can get it at a discounted price point. We got this game through our Viveport Infinity subscription, as that is what we think the best deal to get a virtual reality game right now. #selfietennis is a fun game for a introduction to virtual reality, or a quick break at work, but not anything more than that. We enjoyed it, but it won’t be in our library long.
