Whilst I admit that I am more of a Nintendo kind of person at heart, SEGA’s Superstar Tennis is still the kind of thing that somehow warms your insides no matter how many times you take the collection of words ‘sports game’ and ‘company mascots’ and end up with a small sentence that has the cash-in light bulb in your head flashing away. Being able to play tennis with a maraca-shaking monkey is more than enough to sell a game to me in any case.

The game is, of course, something of a tribute from SEGA to their fans, collecting characters and settings from some of their more popular efforts from the last few decades into a simple-yet-fun sports title. We have Sonic (yay), Tails (not so yay), a couple of the Monkey Ball monkeys (!) and the little sambaing monkey Amigo (ultra yay) amongst a selection of other characters from games such as Space Channel 5 and Jet Set Radio, with each game represented also having a court or theme that you can undertake a bit of the ol’ serve-and-volley in.

As you’d expect with this being a Wii game, the control scheme allows for – but doesn’t force – motion control, with the player legging it around the court with the Nunchuck and swiping at the ball with appropriate gestures of the Wii-mote. It works pretty nicely too once you get used to the notion of positioning your character at the right angles to send your returns exactly where you want them to go, although for those who would prefer just tapping buttons or such there is the option of either turning the Wii-mote on its side or plugging in a classic controller. Personally I preferred the motion controls, but then again I’m not averse to waving my arms around like a bit fat idiot now and again.

The tennis itself is actually really quite rewarding, although if you play it on anything below medium difficulty level you will find yourself winning with so much ease that you could practically have a beer during the middle of your matches and still end up winning your games to love. It’s all remarkably simple, fun arcade tennis much in the same way Mario Tennis offered a few years back, making it the ideal game for multiplayer larks with up to three additional players.

One thing that does set SST apart from the aforementioned fat plumber’s game is the Superstar State that you can unleash after chaining together enough decent shots during rallies. By tapping the A and B buttons together your character will perform some kind of special move that is themed to whomever they might be, such as Amigo having a bunch of maracas pop up around the opposition side of the net to deflect the ball, NiGHTs having the ball warp and loop bizarrely around and Sonic turning himself into Super Sonic for a bit of a speed burst. In matches between two evenly matched players these can become point-clinching moments as they’re somewhat overpowered, so unleashing them at the right moment becomes more crucial.

This is all well and good, but one thing that the game really does miss out on is online play. Tennis online works really rather nicely as the 360 version of Virtua Tennis proved, and being able to hop into games and tournaments online with random folk or your buddies would have been lovely. Local multiplayer is – as previously mentioned – more than adequately covered, but in the wee hours of the morning when you are lolling about with a gut ache after a particularly sharp curry the option to pass time playing the world’s best would have been ace. The 360 and the PS3 versions have it in, so what about the Wii owners out there, SEGA?

It’s not as if the single player side of things has been left unloved, though, so it’s not all bad. Planet Superstars forms the main base for solo activity, giving the player a selection of zones based on classic SEGA titles that each offer tournaments, matches and missions to work through. Head to the Monkey Ball zone, for example, and you’ll be tasked with firing your return shots into small plastic balls containing monkeys in order to push them into some bizarre warp gates, whilst going to Curian Mansion will see you fighting off hordes of shambling zombies by zapping brutal forehand and backhand shots into them. If there’s one criticism to be levelled at these missions it’s that, despite each zone offering a decent handful of them, there’s not too much variation between them and can get rather samey after a while, but as a counter argument you could say that if you’re looking for massive variety in a tennis game then you’ve turned up at the wrong gig.

Planet Superstars also allows you to unlock plenty of content for your game, be it extra characters such as Amy (but not Knuckles, damn it), settings, mini games for multiplayer fun and classic SEGA tunes, although the best of these is undoubtedly the funky World Cup 1998 flashback that is Samba de Janeiro (you know, the one that goes la la, la laaaaaaa la la la laaa laa!). It certainly throws a decent enough incentive for you to continue mining through the challenges and competitions, although if you’re not a massive fan of SEGA then it won’t be quite as geekishly exciting no doubt.

Other than that, there are the standard match and tournament options available from the get-go that you can jump into if you’re after a quick fix. Given the fact that the tennis is so simple to just pick up and have a bash at they are two modes that you will end up spending a pretty good amount of time in, as although the Games mode gives you the mini games that Planet Superstars offers you quickly realise that the most fun is to be had with the core sport, be it in singles or doubles competition.

This is obviously a good thing, and points to SST being a jolly good game to sit back and plug away at for an hour or two. It looks funky and colourful with all sorts of bright and brash colours and styles mixing together to create something that has that SEGA feel about it, and with the courts being in familiar locations and the music buzzing along happily in the background it’s something that fans will no doubt really enjoy spending time with. For people not to bothered about quirky monkeys, blue hedgehogs and androgynous flying jesters it’ll perhaps not quite have the same loving glow but at the same time it offers a decent arcade tennis title that’s a great laugh on your own or with a few friends. Not an essential purchase by any stretch of the imagination, but if you’re hankering for more tennis fun having worn Wii Sports to the ground then this is very much your option of choice.