On the downside, the game is an aural nightmare. In keeping with the spirit of a game that you would find at the local arcade, the soundtrack is a loud, simplistic assault on the ear drums. In the interest of writing an encompassing review, I left the music on much longer than I normally would have. After an hour or two of game play, it was either the music or me, and the music lost. There is no character speech whatsoever, despite the fact that you earn an achievement for “conversations” with the pros. The “conversations” are simple text by the pro accompanied by some bad lip movements. The pro will seem to be reciting an entire paragraph while the text simply reads “Let’s do this”. It’s not even close to being in synch with what the pro is purportedly saying. The crowd noises and player grunts are not varied at all, and more or less sound the same from volley to volley and match to match. Despite the shortcomings the audio feedback is sufficient to let you know you’ve connected on a high power shot or your opponent has sneaked in a drop shot on you.
All in all Virtua Tennis 3 is an enjoyable game for tennis fans and non-fans alike. There are 50 achievements that have you covered from the get go to the finish, with points for simply creating a character up to points for 500 lifetime maximum power serves. The major selling point for me is the quickly paced and varied game play. The career mode is not an obstacle to replay value like Top Spin 2, but rather a fantastic compliment to the bevy of minigames. Gamers of all ages and experience levels should be able to pick up and enjoy this game right away.
