About the game
Virtua Tennis 3, known in Japan as Sega Professional Tennis: Power Smash 3, is the second arcade sequel in Sega's Virtua Tennis series. The arcade version runs on the PC-based Sega Lindbergh board. Ports followed for PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation Portable and PlayStation 3, with the traditional collection of tennis minigames that the home versions of the series are known for. In 2009 Sega updated and re-created it as Virtua Tennis 2009.
The home versions have Tournament Mode and Exhibition Mode from the arcade game, plus a World Tour Mode and Court Games. These replace the arcade game's Challenge Mode. The PS3 version lets you control the game with the Sixaxis motion controller, and both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions support native 1080p. The Xbox 360 version has the online tournaments and modes.
In World Tour you create a male or female player who starts the SPT World Tour ranked 300th and aims for number one, improving through matches, training minigames and academy exercises. Tournament mode has five matches on different surfaces, with the bosses Duke and King waiting depending on your ranking. Exhibition has customizable single matches, and Court Games puts the minigames into multiplayer.
Reviews were generally favourable on all platforms. Famitsu gave the PS3 version 28 out of 40, and Edge gave it 8 out of 10.
The text above is adapted from Wikipedia and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
What critics said
Metacritic 80 out of 100 (PS3). Individual reviews: Famitsu 28/40, Edge 8/10, Game Informer 7/10, IGN 7.3/10, GameSpy 4/5, PlayStation: The Official Magazine 8.5/10, 4Players 85/100.
Good to know
- The Japanese title is Sega Professional Tennis: Power Smash 3, the same name as the arcade game.
- The PS3 version supports Sixaxis motion control, and both the PS3 and 360 versions run at native 1080p.
- The PS3 version came out in March 2007, before the PS3 had trophies, so there are none.
- The PS3 version was made by Sega AM3, the team behind the arcade game. Sumo Digital made the Xbox 360, PC and PSP versions.
Made by
Director Kazuko Noguchi, Producer Mie Kumagai, Designer Nobuyuki Yamashita, Designer Norio Furuichi, Programmer Yoshifumi Ishihata, Composer Kentaro Koyama.
