Virtua Tennis 3 (PS3) > Reviews > good, but could have been so much better!

Author's product rating:   

Playability & Enjoyment	A good game - playable and enjoyable
Originality	Not bad - some good ideas
Graphics	Excellent
Sound	Good - relevant music & effects
Difficulty & Complexity	Average - suitable for most

Advantages:	fluid gameplay, nice graphics
Disadvantages:	no online mode, world tour dull after while

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Virtua Tennis 3 is the latest of a long list of tennis games realised on various games consoles and it is a good game. The playstation 3 version which I own is very similar to the previous release on the playstation 2. A few more players from both the men's and women's tours have been added, the graphics enhanced such as court wear and tear and the world tour mode has seen some minor changes. Apart from these suttle changes its basically the same game, but it is very good and probably still the best tennis game available to buy.

The following male players are on the game:
Mario Ancic (CRO)
James Blake (USA)
Taylor Dent (USA)
Roger Federer (SWI)
Juan Carlos Ferrero (SPA)
Sebastian Grosjean (FR)
Tommy Haas (GER)
Tim Henman (UK)
Lleyton Hewitt (AUS)
Gael Monfils (FR)
Rafael Nadal (SPA)
David Nalbandian (ARG)
Andy Roddick (USA) 13 players

The following female players are on the game:
Lindsay Davenport (USA)
Daniella Hantuchova
Martina Hingis (BEL)
Amellie Mauresmo (FRA)
Maria Sharapova (RUS)
Vaidisova (RUS)
Serena Williams (USA)
Venus Williams (USA) 8 players

I do find the choice of players that sega have featured in this game rather strange. In the men's game we are missing Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, Nikolai Davydenko and Richard Gasquet, yet included are Tim Henman even though he has now retired and Sebastian Grosjean who is around 50th in the ATP rankings. The women's choices are even stranger. Justin Henin the world number 1 is not included, neither is Svetlana Kuznetsova or Jelena Jankovic and these are all players that have been around for a few years; maybe the players asked not to be included in the game?

2 player matches:
this is definitely the most enjoyable aspect of the game because the gameplay is so good and if you play somebody who is similar standard you can have a really good game. You will have to use different types of shot to beat you're opponent including topspin, slice, lobs and drop shots. Also, different surfaces require different strategy in order to be effective eg the clay is a very slow surface and therefore longer rallies take place and it is harder to hit winners, thus slice and drop shots are important to wear you're opponent down in war of attrition.

World tour:
This is very similar to the previous games world tour. You start off ranked 300 in the world and have to try and raise your ranking by playing in tournaments and training different aspects of you're game using the training mini-games available to you. These include groundstoke, serve, volleying, footwork and strategy games, which can involve anything from serving at bowling pins to dodging fruit.
The difficulty of the tournaments increases as you progress up the rankings. You start off playing challenger events, then advanced events before finally the 4 grandslams. However, because the game has no official license the tournament names aren't real and the courts themselves made up which is rather disappointing.
Another new feature is the messaging centre. Here you can get emails from you're coach giving you tips on your game and even messages from fellow players offering you training matches and even free equipment. In addition to this there is a stamina meter telling you how fatigued you are. You can either take some rest, a vacation or drink and energy boost to raise the stamina level - but be careful if you over do it you can become injured and this puts you out of action for anything from a few weeks to months depending upon the severity of the injury.

Conclusion:
I get the feeling that this could have been a really really great game, but it does fall short. It's a bit too easy to progress in the world tour and the fact that there is no online mode really lets the game down. The best aspect is definitely the 2player mode because after a while playing by yourself becomes dull. Even though there are some annoying flaws with this game it is still the best tennis game available.

Thanks for reading x