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Way on back in 1981, a little company called Activision released Tennis for the Atari 2600. Up until that time, most of us thought of Pong or some variant when someone mentioned a tennis video game. Activision's fantastic cart, however, was different. Instead of players represented by sticks and a dot for a ball, Activision gave us a tennis game with players that actually held rackets and ran around a court.

The ball, on the other hand, looked like a tennis ball and even cast a shadow on the court. The game also had a bit of dimension in that players could run all over their respective sides of the court and execute some moves to get tricky angles on their shots. Indeed, Activision's Tennis looked great and is one of the better tennis games made.

Now, bear with me. There's a point to all this. I promise!

Perhaps the main reason Activision's Tennis was so great was that the controls were easy to handle, yet enough little tricks could be used by the player to pop off some good angles and the like. The game was easy to play, but remained challenging, see.

And, folks, that same quality is shared by Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast. I've played a hell of a lot of tennis games on consoles through the years, and have discovered the overwhelming majority of them have one of two major flaws (some games even have both of them).

First of all, a good number of tennis simulations put too much emphasis on timing, proper "button mashing" and the like, thus making it hard as hell to hit the ball. A tennis game which requires that much work is rarely fun. In Virtua Tennis, however, newcomers can flip on the Dreamcast and figure out what needs to be done to hit the ball fairly quickly. It's pure arcade in that regard -- just sit down and play the thing.

Second, I've seen a lot of tennis games that are flat out boring because of the lack of variety in angles, shots and etc. Those games might be fun with two players who don't know what the heck they're doing and miss a good number of shots as a matter of course, but they tend to degenerate into one long, torture-packed volley after another. In Virtua Tennis, however, lobs, smashes, sneaky serves and the like are available and easy to learn. And, of course, the ball can be "aimed" to get the right angle.

While this game may remind me a bit of Activision's Tennis because it's easy to learn and challenging, there are, of course, a lot of differences. First of all, this is just a damn pretty game. The characters are well-defined and are animated to move in a realistic manner. The ball is large, easy to see and behaves properly when hit. And, surfaces are done quite well -- grass courts look a bit worn from use, while hard courts look sharp and offer plenty of opportunities for smashes and hard, solid hits.

Indeed, the attention to detail is great (including doubles partners congratulating each other after scoring points), but that's to be expected. The Dreamcast, after all, is one of those 128-bit consoles, so good graphics aren't just nice -- they're absolutely expected. Sega delivers the goods in the graphics department here, and this game looks very much like a tennis match on television (well, the graphics aren't that good, but you see what I mean).

Indeed, what it all comes down to is gameplay. A game isn't worth a damn if it looks great but is horrible to play, right? As I've stated, this game is wonderfully easy to play and even helps one develop skills.

For example, a first-time player is probably wise to head to the "arcade" mode in the game, select a doubles partner and play against the computer. The rookie player can pick up some moves by watching his partner, and that takes some of the pressure off because a good number of the shots is being handled by the computer. Once the doubles mode is mastered, the player can choose a match against a computer opponent and select a lower skill setting.

The true heart of this game, however, is in the tournament mode. Training segments are available to the player can develop some skills (pushing huge balls past the opposite baseline by hitting them with strong shots, for example) and the matches start out relatively easy and grow in complexity. Along the way, money is earned for doubles partners, new strings, snazzy threads and etc. The goal, of course, is to advance through the ranks and be the top-rated player (of course).

Beating the game, however, is not easy. The computer can be darn tricky at higher levels and rarely misses shots. Still, the player gets a goal to shoot for, and that means this title stays challenging for a long time.

And, you get multiplayer modes! That's right, choose doubles partners or play against your friends. Up to four people can play on this, making for some killer doubles matches (if you have the controllers for all that and find enough people with time to kill).

Now, for the downsides of this game. You get several "pro" player to choose from, but the majority of them just aren't big names anywhere outside of groups of hardcore fans. Also, they're all men. That doesn't bother me, but it seems like some folks might want to choose some women players.

That oversight has been corrected in Tennis 2K2, which features the likes of Venus and Serena Williams.

Still, I've seen Virtua Tennis on sale for $10 all over the place, and it's an absolute steal at that price. This, indeed, is one of the better tennis games you're going to find.