Title Virtua Tennis 3 Date 04.12.2007 Genre Sports Platform Xbox 360 Developer Sega of America Publisher Sega of America

It has taken a long time for Sega to come through on this for me. Was it worth it? Hell yeah. As a huge fan of the Virtua Tennis series on the Sega Dreamcast, I was delighted to see them bring back their amazing sports game to the Xbox 360. Virtua Tennis has always been about plain and simple fun, whether with friends or all by your lonely self in your basement. This newest sequel is just that, and a little more thanks to some amazing visuals and some cool online features.

Virtua Tennis 1 and 2 had a very easy pick up and play gameplay and this is certainly the case for the VT3. Controlling your players and accuracy of hitting the ball is very precise but extremely easy to use meaning anybody could pick this up and be an expert at it in no time. Using either the D pad or Analog stick and the A,B,X,Y buttons to control the player and the ball, this game isn't a whole lot different from its previous versions. This isn't really an issue, probably a good thing but it would have been nice to see extra gameplay features to differ this from other versions. But to be fair, VT has always been about quick, fun arcade action and any major change to that may ruin the feel of the game which we would have expected.

As you would expect, VT3 has a pretty long and increasingly hard World Career Mode. VT3 lets you create your own character before pitting him against the worlds best. One problem though. The game only has 20 licensed characters and no fictional characters which means you'll be playing Roger Federer possibly ten times(each time getting harder obviously as time passes) throughout this mode along with the other players too.

This can be quite boring after a while but the increase in difficulty will help prolong your play here. VT3 brings back all your favorite mini games and some new ones too. They're all extremely fun but similar to the VT1 and 2. In the 360 version of this game, VT3 features a great online experience. Including ranked matches, ranked tournaments and the ability to watch other Live matches really keeps this game going for a long time.

In terms of how the visuals look, well let me say this : 1080p. VT3 is really a stunning game visually and you wouldn't be mistaken to think that this was real if you stood back from the TV a little. While some of the characters and fans are a little less detailed than others, you still get the feeling that Sega did a great job with no visibly drop in framerate.

To be honest, I was expecting Sega more to refine the gameplay mechanics than totally overhauling it. I was correct but slightly disappointed as it doesn't have Next Generation screaming at you other than the pretty graphics. If you were expecting something similar to VT1 and 2 then you will absolutely love this game. If you were expecting something of a life changing experience, go elsewhere. One thing still has to be said about this series, it is still the most fun sports title around on any format.

Game Score

B+

Reviewed By: Contributed