It seems the only place tennis great Roger Federer can be beaten is on the virtual court. Federer is one of the many real-life tennis pros included in Virtua Tennis, which is making its way to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in late March. We spent some time with an updated preview build of the PS3 version recently and are pleased to report that the Virtua Tennis formula of exciting tennis action combined with a minigame-happy career mode are all well intact.

　　Maria Sharapova is just one of the big-time tennis stars you can play as in Virtua Tennis 3.

　　Our first stop in the Virtua Tennis 3 tour was with the ladies. We quickly loaded up a match pitting Maria Sharapova versus Martina Hingis, not only to get a feel for the controls of the game, but also to check out the quality of the character models. Neither let us down--the game features the same pick-up-and-play controls you've become used to from the series, with the left analog stick controlling your player and the different buttons assigned to different kinds of shots. The longer you hold the button down, the more time you'll have to prepare the shot, and thus the more power and angle you can put on it. The controls in Virtua Tennis 3 aren't difficult to understand, and, like in the sport itself, the difficulty all comes down to the skill of the opponent you're facing.

　　The player models are impressive. We won't say that the player model of Sharapova was a dead ringer for the 2006 US Open Winner, but the virtual version certainly was recognizable, as was the model for Hingis. As accurate as the women look, the men seem to fare a bit better in the game--the Federer model, for example, captures the tennis great all the way down to his bulbous nose, trademark head band, and floppy tangle of dark hair. Regardless of accuracy, all of the models benefit from the game's impressive lighting and particle effects, such as when a player quickly changes direction on a clay court, kicking up a small cloud as your player shifts his or her weight.

　　Though you can play any number of singles or doubles matches in Virtua Tennis 3 in exhibition mode, you'll undoubtedly be spending the majority of your single-player time in world tour mode. Here, you create a male or female tennis player from scratch and compete in the fictional Sega Professional Tennis tour, moving your way up the ranks and taking on progressively more difficult opponents. If you've played Virtua Tennis: World Tour for the PlayStation Portable, you'll have a good idea of how the mode plays out. You progress through the mode in one-week chunks, wherein you have three options to occupy your time for that week: play tournaments, train, or rest.

　　The only way to move up the rankings is by playing tournaments. As you start out, though, not all the tournaments will be open to you--in fact, you'll be ranked too low for the majority of the tournaments that come your way. It's all the more important, then, to enter every tournament you do qualify for to raise your rank and get more chances to play. You run up against actual real-life tennis pros early and often in this mode--so don't be surprised if you manage to beat down Federer with ease in two straight sets. It won't always be that easy. During nontournament weeks, you'll be able to spend your time training in a truly huge number of tennis-based minigames that, in keeping to the series, are fun and, in some cases, just a little bit insane.

　　Straight from the country club to your living room. Create a tennis pro and go for the #1 ranking.

　　All of the minigames in world tour mode affect various areas of your game--from your serve to your footwork to your volley abilities, and so on. In addition, not all of the minigames are available to you right away--you can expect to unlock new training minigames as you progress through and win tournaments. Most of the minigames have you fielding serves from tennis-ball machines and require you to hit the ball in certain areas of the court. In Alien Attack, for example, you're required to fend off wave after wave of "alien" machines advancing on the opposite course. If you manage to hit one of the red machines, you'll send off an explosion that will destroy several of the regular machines surrounding it.

　　Court Curling has you pushing giant curling stones into specific areas of the court for points. The only way to move the huge stones is by hitting them, and because of their heft, you'll usually have to hit them more than once to move them where you want. In Panic Balloon, a number of clear balloons drop on the opposite court, all filled with arrows. Each arrow indicates the direction the ball will head once you pop that balloon--the minigame then becomes a test of your player's footwork, as well as your sense of anticipation. Another footwork minigame, known as Avalanche, is perhaps the craziest found in the game. Your player stands on a court with a massive dump truck ahead of him. Cascading down the ramp of the dump truck are huge tennis balls and slightly smaller fruits. The goal here is to collect as many of the fruits as you can within the specified time limit, while dodging the huge tennis balls at the same time. Get struck by a ball, and you'll lose points and your player will be temporarily stunned. It's surprisingly addictive and altogether strange, and while we don't know for sure, we suspect that Andy Roddick has nightmares just like this.

　　Canadians rejoice! Your strange shuffleboard-like sport is coming to Virtua Tennis 3… sort of.

　　That isn't all the minigames though--there's Prize Defender, where you have to protect valuable tennis goodies from being knocked off a shelf by volleying the ball. There's Count Mania, where you have to hit numbered areas of the court with your shots in sequential order. There's also Feeding Time, where you have to stop some windup alligators from getting to juicy chunks of meat by...you know what? It's probably best if you see Feeding Time yourself, as it's just too odd to describe.

　　If you tire of the minigames, you can go check out the training academy, which presents you with more straightforward goals. Early on, the challenges are simple--such as hitting three crosscourt shots or hitting three maximum power serves. As you progress, though, things get more complicated, such as forcing your opponent to hit a diving shot. Just as with the minigames, your various attributes will go up after completing a training-academy test.

　　All of the training and tournaments are mitigated by your player's stamina rating, which slowly decreases as the weeks pile up. At some point, you'll have to recharge, and to do so you have three options: spend a week at home, take a three-week vacation on a tropical island, or pound an energy drink. The last option won't cost you any downtime, but the game warns you against drinking too much of it. While the three-week stay seems to regenerate the most energy, you'll need to plan for this kind of vacation carefully, as you wouldn't want to miss out on a big tournament while you're lounging away. You can always bring up the calendar with the R1 button to see what your near-term schedule holds.

　　As you progress through the game, you'll get periodic e-mails from your tennis coach, who will offer tips on your game and occasionally send you new gear that you can equip. You'll also receive gear from the SPT and other organizations. While much of the beginning equipment is merely cosmetic, the later gear you collect will add boosts to your player's various abilities.

　　In addition to the world tour and exhibition modes, Virtua Tennis 3 offers a singles and doubles tournament mode, where you play succeeding tournaments for cash, and a court games mode, where you can play both single-player and versus versions of some of the training minigames found in world tour mode. Though the game supports up to four players on the same console, there doesn't seem to be any online features (unlike the Xbox 360 version, which supports up to eight players).

　　Sixaxis controls will let you play tennis without ever having to press a button.

　　The PS3 version does have Sixaxis controls, however, which have you controlling not only the position of your player but the type of shot he or she hits by moving the controller in various directions. To hit a lob shot, for example, you move the controller up when it gets close to your player; to hit a slice, you move the controller down. Top-spin shots are pulled off by moving the controller left or right. Moving your player around the court is controlled by tilting the Sixaxis in any direction. In all, the Sixaxis controls are relatively intuitive and work as they should, but they don't really add that much to the overall game experience.

　　Virtua Tennis 3 will be served into stores in late March. Expect to see us volley back a complete review of the game once it's released.