Smash Court Tennis 3

Platform: PSP
Verdict: Needs strawberries n' cream.
Rating: 3/5
With the football season over it's soon to be tennis' time to take over the TV screens of those too lethargic to make it out into the summer sun and what perfect timing for Smash Court Tennis 3 to arrive and provide the tennis enthusiast the canny ability to leave the house and still indulge in some racket based entertainment (apart from playing it for real that is).
Snapping at the heels of the PSP's recent re-introduction to Sega's revered Virtua Tennis series, Smash Court has a lot of work cut out for it to be able to justify its existence in delivering its own top spin on the same game.
Where it immediately differs most is how it controls – each face button is relegated to varying return types – slice and spin etc. So far so similar yet the timing of button presses differs from Virtua Tennis' real time reaction - in a similar way to Rockstar's Table Tennis, as soon as the opponent hits the ball you can tap a button and your player will return it when it becomes near enough. Precise timing is no longer required to just return the ball, instead it's used for accuracy and power - with the timing of each button press and release defining decent returns.
While this is an interesting attempt at a different approach, it backfires by making it feel less immediate, tactile and fun.
Elsewhere, Smash Court 3 seeks to out do Virtua Tennis by offering an overwhelming wealth of features. Alongside Arcade and Exhibition modes, Pro Tour allows you to create, customise and build your own player into a tennis super star. With masses of stats, a tour calendar to plan your season, Smash Court offers a comprehensive and polished career mode yet still treads familiar ground.
For those with shorter attention spans there's Ad Hoc multiplayer between PSPs and some quirky mini games such as Pac Man Tennis but they don't make up for the fact that although Smash Court tries really hard to impress, it just lacks that special ingredient where it matters most – on the court.