Virtua Tennis 3

If you've ever played Virtua Tennis, you know what to expect here.

Football, baseball, and soccer all command attention, but not even their best video game counterparts attain the level of addiction fostered by whacking a ball back and forth over a net.

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Everything Old is New Again

Don't expect to see anything resembling a reinvention here. There are surreal new training exercises, and Xbox Live support, but the only noticeable difference in gameplay between Virtua Tennis 3 and its ancestors is the improved sense of control. Tennis Academy events seem designed to frustrate rather than educate half the time, but once you get the hang of a particular maneuver, it takes only practice to pull off exactly the shots you want. Also, the variety of movements help make this the deepest virtual experience of the sport you can buy.

Pretty as a Picture

Unfortunately, Virtua Tennis 3 doesn't live up to its own hype in the graphics department. It is the first Xbox 360 game to support 1080p, and boasts an exceptionally crisp picture as a result, but the actors and environments don't offer enough detail and pizzazz to justify trumpeting it as photorealism. The variety of court surfaces, clothing, and equipment help maintain visual interest, but there's nothing here to drop your jaw.

Still, bloated expectations aside, Virtua Tennis is a fan service treat from the moment you open the box, and setting down the controller without blowing hours on end requires considerable willpower, even if it all comes to feel like just a more refined, balanced version of what we already played to death on the Dreamcast.

Pros: Intuitive controls, strangely addictive, first Xbox 360 game to offer 1080p support.
Cons: Graphics don't live up to the hype, difficulty jumps without warning, training is only marginally effective, annoying soundtrack demands muting.

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