While extremely early in development, Virtua Tennis 3 for the PlayStation 3 was at Sony's booth for everyone to try out. While development may have just started not too long ago, the game is already shaping up to be one of the most fun sports games coming out for next-gen consoles.  The visuals were still being worked out, but the gameplay is pretty much what you'd expect from a Virtua Tennis title. Sega seems to be on the fast track to regaining the reputation that the name Sega held long ago.

The look of the game while in the standard above-the-court view was great, with nothing easily wrong with the graphics. Once the game zooms in on the player in a cutscene, however, there were a lot of problems graphically. From extremely jagged edges to problems with pixels displaying incorrectly on the players' faces, Sega will most likely be fixing this issue with a vast majority of the development time left before its expected second quarter release. The animations for the players were convincingly real in the usual improvised look that many tennis players tend to display when they are hustling to that volley on the court.

The gameplay is pretty much what you'd expect from the series: simple, easy, and fun. The game requires just three buttons for the swings to cover lobs, top spins, and slice shots on the X, square, and circle buttons. The demo was pretty easy for a series vet such as myself, so the two set match went by quickly. What I saw was what I wanted to see out of an early build of the game, now I want to see Sega add in all the things that they have said that they would add. From improved raphics, over the arcade version, to new minigames and improved AI, Sega should be qualified enough to make these adjustments before the game hits retail.

Simply put, the game is fun in the early build and its faults are simply a result of being very early in development. Fans of the Virtua Tennis series or tennis in general should be able to look forward to this game faithfully for the next year.