Action | Action / Adventure | Adventure | Fighting | FPS | Hardware | MMORPG | Platformer | Puzzler | Racing | 
Retro | Rhythm | RPG | RTS | Shooter | Sim | Software | Sport | Strategy | 

 

Being a huge fan of tennis, I was eagerly awaiting getting my hands on Sega's Virtua Tennis 3 and after spending some quality time with the game I was not left disappointed.

Virtua Tennis 3 is a great game.

Get ready for blisters on your thumbs!

It gradually introduces you to the basics of tennis through a series of mini games. When you begin the career mode you get to customize your own tennis player and begin your quest to glory. But before you can play on the pro circuit you need to develop your skills. This can be done by playing a host of very enjoyable mini games. These mini games focus on developing four of your basic tennis skills: Volleying , Footwork , Ground shots and Serving.

Virtua Tennis's biggest lure is the career mode which is much deeper than the previous games and has seen some very nice improvements.
Once you've got the basics right it's time to enter tournaments and start moving towards your main aim, the number 1 ranking. You can do this by entering the singles as well as doubles tournaments.

In your quest you will travel around the world. The tournaments take place in locations such as France, England, Spain, China, USA, Australia, Germany and many more. You will play on grass, clay as well as hard courts. The earlier matches will have just two games but as you progress in the rankings , the tournaments will get much longer and harder. One thing that really annoys me is that you get to play with only a handful of players through out the game.

Whilst playing in career mode you have to take care of your player's stamina. Your stamina decreases as you train and compete in tournaments. To avoid injury it is important that you take a breather every now and then. This can be done in three ways: drinking energy drinks, taking a week off to recuperate or taking a three week vacation.

The controls of Virtua Tennis 3 are simple yet allow for a wide variety of shots. Initially you may find the game a bit too easy, but as you progress the difficulty level increases and so do the number of blisters on your thumbs!!!

There are still some minor issues that prevent the game play of VT3 from being truly awesome. Volleys and Lobs are pretty much useless while playing against Computer Controlled Opponents. This leaves anyone who has a serve and volley game extremely annoyed.

Virtua Tennis 3 is a very good looking game. Though it may have a few frame rate issues , overall it is a very well polished game.

Unfortunately the game only allows for ad-hoc support. This is not too bad, but it would be nice if the game offered some online play options.

In the end Virtua Tennis is a great game and has enough action packed in it to keep you busy for quite some time. I truly recommend this game to sports and tennis lovers.