Publisher: Atari
Developer: Namco Bandai
System: Xbox 360
Genre: Sports
Release date: Available now
Review by: Ed Humphries

For a sport that single-handedly fathered the entire video-game bloodline following the release of Pong, tennis seems to get short shrift in gaming these days. Sure, there are a smattering of games released each year—usually timed to coincide with Wimbledon—but compared to the vast iterations of baseball, hockey and of course, football, that are released almost monthly, tennis often languishes on the sidelines. It’s a void that Namco Bandai hopes to fill with the release of Smash Court Tennis 3.

Smash Court Tennis 3 is actually a port of a PSP title released in 2007. While it features the facelift one would expect in the transition to more powerful hardware, this is the exact same game released on Sony’s handheld. That said, the Xbox 360 version of offers a full menu of features to fill your solo and multiplayer needs, so newcomers to the series should find something of interest here.

On the single-player front, the core of the game centers on the Pro Tour mode. Here, players can choose an existing tennis pro or build their own from scratch using a character-creation tool similar to the ones found in RPGs such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion or Mass Effect. Every inch of your avatar can be crafted, meaning you really need to pay attention to such minor nuisances as proper bone structure, or you’ll be stuck guiding Cro-Magnon man through the championship.

Once you’ve crafted your player, you are free to pursue a multi-year career. Each year features a 12-week season during which you enter a variety of tournaments and special events. Using a calendar system, you can choose your events, partake in special training challenges aimed at boosting your stats, or use your winnings to shop for better gear. As with the Franchise modes spotlighted in other sports series such as Madden, equal attention is paid to how you conduct your affairs off the court as well as on. This means you’ll need to hit the training courses and court doubles partners if you want to snag those lucrative sponsorships, and of course, if you want to keep them, you’ll need to make sure that you keep winning.