Virtua Tennis 3 Comments by Kristan Reed

Look, it's Pong with 3D and textures. Instant wonderful gameplay!

This is the first game that made me feel only owning a PS3 would mean missing out on something. I'm not a big fan of tennis games, though I enjoyed the PSP demo. All the same, kudos to the 360 for making online gaming so easy to implement even silly Japanese developers bother ... ;)

I guess I'll just have to wait till Virtua Tennis 2008 comes out with Online on the PS3 also, with some nice indoor tennis courts in PS Home eh? ;)

Unless 360 starts supporting the G25 and Forza 2 will actually be good, and they release a quieter SKU ... then who knows ... I'm still paying for Live for my original Xbox, even though I haven't played it for 3 years now, just to keep my silly username ... oh well.

(yes, yes, I know, I'm a big fanboy ;) )

"There wasn't an awful lot that AM3 and Sumo needed to do other than to give it slightly more depth, tweak the visuals and add online play, and it has succeed on all fronts - at least as far as the 360 version is concerned."

Oh really. They should have concentrated on not having the male tennis players dive for just about every ball. It isn't a problem with the women players in the game.

VT3 is a letdown. I played the demo and i'd give it a 7/10 at best.

Apparently it's region free and £26 at Play Asia... Still, I won't get it since it's miles away from the excellent Top Spin 1

"Oh really. They should have concentrated on not having the male tennis players dive for just about every ball. It isn't a problem with the women players in the game.

VT3 is a letdown. I played the demo and i'd give it a 7/10 at best."

You're just rubbish at the game.

Edit: fixed.

Virtua Tennis 3 is a great game, but ALL of the replay value is in the Online part of the game.

If you like tennis, you will LOVE Virtua Tennis 3...but only on the Xbox 360. The Playstation 3 version is only worth a rental, because it doesn't include online features.

Xbox 360 really is MUCH BETTER than the Playstation 3, in terms of both graphics and online play.

God dammit, I might even end up buying a 360!

Can you play proper single player tournaments outside of the world tour ?
Can you play a career without having to play any of the absolutely awful mini games ?
Can you play online using the built in real players, or do you have to use your own custom created player ?
Can you turn the music off, the music in the demo was quite simply some of the worst I've heard in years ? (Probably since the last Sega game I played)
Can you slow the game down, I thought the demo played way to fast to be fun when your trying to get to grips with it. (Even the original tennis on the game boy had difficulty settings that effectively just slowed the game down on easy levels).

Ceatlan.

//Awaiting an offer for a proof reader/writer

"ebaylol"

???

Sorry, you've lost me.

SOLD !

VT and Everyones Golf were the only two reason I regretted trading in my PSP... and I don't like Golf or Tennis.

Ceatlan:

Can you play proper single player tournaments outside of the world tour ?
**Yes - and you can configure the amount of games/sets/difficulty level.


Can you play a career without having to play any of the absolutely awful mini games ?
**Yes, but you won't get very far. You need to play mini games to level up your stats. The mini games are not awful, though.

Can you play online using the built in real players, or do you have to use your own custom created player ?
**Yes, you can use either.

Can you turn the music off, the music in the demo was quite simply some of the worst I've heard in years ? (Probably since the last Sega game I played)
**Yes, thank god!

Can you slow the game down, I thought the demo played way to fast to be fun when your trying to get to grips with it. (Even the original tennis on the game boy had difficulty settings that effectively just slowed the game down on easy levels)
**There are numerous difficulty levels, so in effect yes, plus the female players are slower.

Krudster : Thanks very much for the quick and concise reply. We'll have to agree to disagree about the mini games. In VT2 and Top Spin 1 & 2, I've found some of them fun for all of 5 minutes and most not much fun at all, especially when you have no choice to use them again and again to develope your character. I much preferred the method used in a wimbledon tennis game on the old Sega Game Gear, where you got development points from progressing through tournament which you could spend how you liked.

Quite frankly the game is a no progress compared to the previuos.

Tennis simulation my a.., Players diving every other shot, no volley and lobs, useless slices. Let' hope someone is gonna come up with a simulation one day.

Most overated sport game ever.

Thats because you're crap. U can slice, u can lob, u can really do a lot in this game that requires timing and anticipation, as well as instincts. For eg, the slice shot is great for changing the pace of the game suddenly, like real tennis!

And if u read and anticipated the recieving shot, u wont dive everywhere, but instead do a running-across shot!

The demo was great, apart from the awful music, but that can be muted anyway in the full game.

Good review, if u loved vt2, u will apprecaite VT3 even more.

And as for Top Spin.....well thats just toss.....no real weight to the game. Soz

Well practicing at the demo has really paid off as I got the game this morning and tried an Exhibition game, me as Hewitt vs. Haas and I beat him first time. This game is already teh awesomeness in my opinion and I haven't even played the Career, mini-games or tried it online yet! LOL

This review puzzles me. For the record, I haven't played it yet and currently I am debating which version to go for.

Point is, it has received less flattering reviews from other places, normally known for their reverential view of anything that moves a few pixels. Check out Metacritic. What's more, the flaws they point out in game mechanics (AI players recovering endless to prolong rallies, uneven career progression, etc) seem quite significant.

Which has me thinking whether I should stick to Top Spin 2 (PC version is out by the way) since I mostly play with my friends, or is there a point in getting this (other than getting Raphael Nadal and seeing R-Fed realistically ranked at No.1).

The trouble with Top Spin 2 was of course its risk shots, suddenly making half of the possible shots in Tennis unrealistically unlikely.

Any thoughts?

Can you and a mate do online doubles co-op?

I woud like that

My biggest question as well AceMaCool.

If you can this is a buy, if you can't this game is a no buy

Anybody know the answer?

Yes you can do online doubles co-op

I am most definitely picking this up tomorrow on the basis of how good the demo is/was. I agree with the review score.

The only problem with it in my eyes is the fact that you can take your customised character in to the ranked matches. This is frankly stupid on sumos part as the customised characters will undoubtedly be more powerful than the default ones if it's anything like VT2. This will mean that the online matches will be less about skill and more about out-powering your opponent with a stupidly strong character. It will probably mean the only way to be competitive is to join in with this if-you-cant-beat-em-join-em philosophy and ignore the wonderfully balanced players from the arcade game.

I hope I am proven wrong though.

I thought I had one of those over powered custom characters and promptly got kicked into touch by anyone playing as the best pros, so don't worry too much about that. Most of my stats of my custom champion were above level 30 and it still didn't make a big impression.

/cries.

i am gonna buy it!BUT I REALLY THINK THAT TOP SPIN 1 IS STILL BETTER IN DOUBLES MULTIPLAYER!first of all in VT3 you cannot return the ball out of limits if you have position yourself right!in TOP SPIN 1 if you press the b,x or y buttons a little longer its out of bounds!NOT THE A BUTTON WHICH IS SOMETHING LIKE A SAFE RETURN BUTTON!secondly there are the RISK SHOTS in TOP SPIN 1.i always thought that vt in general were boring if all four players were equally good!the thing is that we could play for minutes for one set!top spin 1 have someting called risk shots!i will not explain what risks shots are but they are cool and really help gameplay.risks shots give you an edge IF YOU MASTER THEM!it makes top spin more unpredictable!and challenging!BASICALLY TOP SPIN IS PRO EVO AND VT IS FIFA!anyway thats only my opinion!IAM GONNA BUY IT BECAUSE IS A GOOD GAME AND BECAUSE IT HAS ONLINE!

Hold on - I need some clarification please on that co-op statement:

Is it possible for 4 people with 4 Xbox 360s to play a doubles game from 4 different internet connections on Xbox Live?

Previous games like TopSpin 2 only allowed 2 people on the same Xbox to play against 2 people on another xbox. This is a small difference but absolutely crucial for people like me who have a group of 4 mates around the country on Xbox Live!

kristan obviously doesn't play tennis IRL.. Otherwise he wouldn't call this the best tennisgame arround.. It's not, it's way to arcady for that.. Topspin2 isn't perfect and may not look as good, but in terms of playing like real tennis it's the better game imho..

I'll wait for Topspin3, VT3 is not my kind of thing..

I'm not remotely interested whether this feels like proper tennis, it's just a fantastic game, and that's all that matters.

...and its a fantastic game that 4 live accounts can play simultaneously????

A year I've been waiting for the answer to this question. Darn it.

Maria Sharapova is so fine

Hold on - I need some clarification please on that co-op statement:

Is it possible for 4 people with 4 Xbox 360s to play a doubles game from 4 different internet connections on Xbox Live?

Yes, for the first time it's proper 4 player online doubles.

The game is VT with solid online play (around 30 matches with not a hint of lag so far), thus making it one of the best games ever. I've also only had one person quit before the match had ended so far and hopefully this will continue.

I've received and sent messages saying 'good game' and 'epic match' etc, which doesn't usually happen on Live (which as you all know, usually contains hateful 12 year old racist idiots - I haven't been playing with the headset though so don't know if i've been getting any verbal abuse...).

I think it's a shame to read paople saying you can't do lobs or slices, or that the players dive all over the place. I would encourage people to persevere with the game... it will click after a bit of practice and then you won't be missing out on a classic...

Played this all night yesterday at my mates house, including an hour and a half long singles match with his girlfriend (which i lost 13-10 on the final tie break), and have become completely addicted, I went to Tesco and bought it on the way home at two in the morning. I love the music, am i really the only one?

Picked it up for EUR 30 a couple of days ago. Great fun! The GF loves it and has been hugging the 360 since the game entered our house. And considering that I'm trying to complete Mass Effect at the moment, that isn't a totally good thing ;)