Sony sent over a retail copy of Hot Shots Tennis for the PS2 for us to review. I got to play a good bit the past few days, and the game is very solid.

I gave my impressions of the demo a little over a week ago, and many of the same things apply to the final code of the game. The game has a fairly deep career mode, where you play through against opponents to level up and unlock new characters, stages, costumes, and various other power-ups.

The game plays similar to most tennis games out there now, with a Hot Shots flare. You have options for standard topspin shots with the X button, backspin shots with the Circle button, and lob shots with the Triangle button. The controls are better than you’d think, given the kooky nature of the game. Serving is more difficult than games like Topspin and Virtua Tennis, since it involves a lot of timing to make sure you don’t fault. If you hit an ace on a serve, half the time the ball will smash your opponent in the face and knock them down, which is hilarious.

The graphics looked terrific on my PS3 upscaled to 1080p. There were times when I thought it may have been a PS3 title it looked so good. There were some areas where jaggies were very evident, but most of the time the character models and the environment looked very crisp.

Expect a full review later this week as I get more time with the game