IGN Reviews: Virtua Tennis 3

'SEGA's original arcade tennis game returns with a well-rounded, if uninspired, effort.'

SEGA's Virtua Tennis 3 is an example of a tennis game inching forward, instead of making significant or even moderate leaps forward. Most gamers who bought an Xbox 360 are hoping to play brand new experiences and full-bodied improvements over their predecessors. I know I am. SEGA only goes half way. Virtua Tennis 3 does make some decent steps forward in the World Tour mode. The added variety -- the attempt at making athletes more realistic and at humanizing them in conversations, for instance, was a nice attempt -- is welcome. The Court mode mini-games are fun for gamers to fiddle around with. And the Xbox Live component does what all good Xbox 360 should do, which is to provide a solid, entertaining, and working online version of the game for both singles and doubles players.

In short, VT3 is impressive in some ways, and all too familiar in others. While SEGA's game provides the best tennis experience on the Xbox 360, there is still a lot of room for SEGA to improve.

Score: 8.0

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