Title: Virtua Tennis 3 Platforms: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, PC ESRB: E

The third installment in the series, "Virtua Tennis 3" comes to current generation systems. Sega's new tennis game is half simulator and half creativity. It has realism and physics with plenty of mini-games to boot. Plus, it has all of today's men and women professionals. It's so realistic, in fact, that I found after an hour of playing matches my forehand stroke improved in a real match. The mini-games are fun and help increase your volley, serve, footwork, and stroke skills in career mode. The career mode works like this. You start out at rank #300 and you need to work your way up to #1 by winning tournaments such as the French Open, Shanghai Hard-court, and the L.A. Open. You have a headquarters where you can change your customized character's gear and rest. You need to rest when your stamina level is low, otherwise you will get an injury making you miss out on tournaments and resulting in your skill levels dropping. You can also go to "the academy" where you can be trained on basic and advanced techniques to improve your game. The career mode can last quite a long time and has much more depth than the previous "Virtua Tennis" games.

The strongpoint of the game is without a doubt the multiplayer. I was so addicted that my fingers were cramping after an afternoon of Xbox Live matches. There is even a spectator mode in which other players can watch a match similar to the game "Rockstar Presents: Table Tennis". The only weak point in the multiplayer is that without a good connection on both sides, a match can be very frustrating with lag as winning requires precision and strategy and bad connections take away from that. However, this game is a must have for any sports or tennis fan. With arcade-like style play, it almost never gets old.

Score:

8/10