Once, I was playing Top Spin for the original Xbox (probably the best tennis game of all time), and my roommate, who isn’t into traditional sports all that much, asked me “What makes this game so much more different than Pong?” It was clear that he was trying to downplay the game mechanics and it irritated me. Rather than pointing out how even comparing the two titles is asinine, I replied with the sweet but simple “Because it’s more fun.” Now what does this all have to do with Virtua Tennis 3? Well, I’ll get there, trust me.

The main reason I bought Virtua Tennis 3 is because I needed a next-gen tennis game. The Top Spin 2 demo really let me down, since it seemed to abandon all the things that made the previous one so great. I also remembered the Virtua Tennis series being pretty impressive back on the Dreamcast. It had pretty much every significant tennis player, and that was a big plus for me. After playing the game, everything above is still pretty much true.

While the game boasts several modes, including your usual exhibition and tournament, the most important one is the World Tour Mode. In this, you get to create your own character and play out his/her career. The character creation system isn’t all that great, but it gets the job done by offering a satisfying amount of variety. You’ll start your career ranked 300th in the world and only eligible for the very small tournaments. As you win tournaments, you rank up and get to play in bigger ones. A big disappointment I noticed was that you’ll play the same selection of players in every tournament. This means that while you’re in the small tournaments, you’ll be able to destroy the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal (currently ranked #1 and #2 in the world respectively), but they’ll be significantly harder in the bigger tournaments. This makes the career mode seem very unrealistic, especially after playing a game like Top Spin.

One cool feature about the career mode is the way it handles training. The way you train involves participating in mini-games that focus on a specific part of your game. For example, service training is done by serving into an array of bowling pins that you have to knock down. Footwork and speed training is done by collecting small pieces of fruit while giant tennis balls, which you must avoid, rain down upon you. I must say I was impressed with the large number of these mini-games, though some are definitely hit or miss. However, they’re all playable outside of the career mode and can even be played in offline and online multiplayer (360 version only), which is a very good thing.

As you train, you gain levels for each parts of your game in a very RPG-like fashion. Also like an RPG, you gain new outfits and rackets after you win tournaments. This allows even more customization of your character and gives you a good sense of accomplishment.

But the actual gameplay of regular tennis is where Virtua Tennis 3 falters so greatly that it’s almost game-breaking. There are four types of shots you can execute with your player. These are normal hit, slice (defensive shot), lob, and drop shot. Now this sounds pretty good, but in reality it just doesn’t work. The reason is that slices barely differ from a normal hit, and don’t seem to have much of an effect. Lobs are much different, but they rarely work and usually just result in the opponent smashing it. Drop shots are pretty hard to pull off and also don’t impact the game much. This results in pretty much every game involving the same pattern of hits and no variety. Playing the game is so repetitive and boring that it feels like you’re level-grinding in an RPG, which is something you definitely do not want in a tennis game. And so, my roommate’s irritating question has no answer, since Virtua Tennis 3 basically becomes Pong with better graphics.

If Sega had just spent some more time tweaking the gameplay, this could have been one of the best tennis games of all time. But they didn’t, and I’m forced to give it a mediocre score. The presentation is all there, the graphics are even better, your favorite licensed players are all there, and the extras/mini-games are all sufficient. Unfortunately, they’re missing the most important part, and that’s what truly hurts this game. I must also mention online play for the 360 version, but the gameplay is still semi-broken, and every game I played had a very noticeable degree of lag. It’s still a reason to pick up the 360 version rather than the PS3 one, where online play is suspiciously absent. The PS3 version does contain Sixaxis controls, but they’re obviously a tacked-on gimmick and seem rather unnecessary.

So if you’re a big fan of tennis games, you might want to check this out just for the player roster and presentation, but I think a rental would be best. The gameplay can also have its fun and/or intense moments, however rare they are, so it’s not completely terrible. It’s just that they messed up on the most crucial part while doing everything else correctly. If it had all these features while simultaneously having good gameplay, it would be great. If it had great gameplay without all these features, it would still be good. But having these features and wanting gameplay, Virtua Tennis 3 is simply mediocre.