Britxbox writes: "Once every year I effectively enter a 2 week state of hibernation. Don't get me wrong, tennis is a great sport to watch; after all where else can you hear 2 grown women moaning and groaning without waiting up till 11pm and entering a pin number?! But with tennis comes Wimbledon, which ends up grinding the BBC's television schedule to a complete standstill for what can only feel like an eternity.
Anyway, away from my gripes of a broadcaster's 2 week summer holiday, I have kindly received a copy of Namco's latest tennis title, Smash Court Tennis 3. Will it be ace, or simply a double fault? "
Another week and another episode of Distributed Failure is here for your listening pleasure. This week's "What They've Been Playing" features discussion on Top Spin 3, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood, Fight Night Round 4, Battlefield 1943, Final Fantasy IV: The After Years, and much more! They follow that up with some gaming news including the latest update on EGM, the addition of prizes to 1 vs. 100, and the announcement of a new Mechwarrior game.
Console Monster writes: "Smash Court Tennis 3 for the Xbox 360 is a port from that released on the PlayStation Portable (PSP). Not a direct port, but still a port nevertheless. So with that in mind, I wasn't expecting too much when I grabbed my racket controller for a spot of tennis.
Upon loading the game you are met with a neat looking menu screen where you can select a various amount of gamemodes. You have the usual modes expected; Exhibition, Tutorial, Arcade and Pro Tour Mode. Being a fan of tennis the first thing I wanted to do was to see what players there were available to play, so I jumped straight into an exhibition game to find out. The roster isn't that bad considering the game doesn't hold many licenses, but it could be better. The pick of the bunch are the mens world No's 1 & 2, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer (at the time of writing this review), as well as many top women professionals including Amelie Mauresmo, the smoking hot fans favourite Maria Sharapova and Justine Henin..."
PALGN writes: "Whether its the rapid-fire arcadey action of Virtua Tennis 3 or the realism of Top Spin 3, tennis games have become an annual occurrence in the sport game genre in recent years. With both Virtua Tennis 3 and Top Spin 3 offering up solid gameplay efforts in both the arcade and simulation gameplay stakes, is there space for Smash Court Tennis 3 on the crowded tennis game shelf?
When packaging a good sports game, there are a number of crucial elements that need to be addressed. Firstly, there needs to be multiple modes of play and a deep set of features to keep players interested in the long term. Fortunately, Smash Court Tennis 3 has it in spades. In addition to the stock Tutorial and Exhibition modes, there is an Arcade mode which lets players try their luck at winning each of the game's fictional tournaments (either in singles or doubles) and the Pro Tour (which serves as the game's career mode)."
