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> Results: Smash Court Tennis 3
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The ESRB Says
Mild Violence: GamerDad saw nothing in the main games or mini-games worth noting. There are two basic ways to bring a sport to a game system - as an accurate simulation or an fun and more simplistic arcade game. Of course, most games are a combination of the two but bear the strong hallmarks of one category or the other. While Virtua Tennis 3 falls clearly on the 'arcade' side of things Smash Court Tennis 3 has always been very much part of the simulation side of the house. This isn't inherently a bad thing, as you will spend loads of time working on all of your shots and moves - and likely come back repeatedly to improve as you get beaten on in matches during the season. The problem is that regardless of how much practice you get you will never fully feel in control of your shot placement or your likelihood of making a 'nice shot', making gameplay feel unnecessarily random and frustrating. There is a lot of tennis in Smash Court Tennis 3 - aside from the massive set of tutorials, you can jump immediately into the action with tournament or arcade mode as well as just having fun in some of the mini-games. There is also limited local multiplayer, but the meat of the game is Pro Tour. Here you build your own player and take them through match after match, tournament after tournament, during the full year. You gain new skills and equipment, get endorsements, play mini-games and rest to keep up your stamina. It is similar to the career mode in Virtua Tennis. Overall the game is acceptable but falls short of both Virtua Tennis games in pretty much every way but most importantly it is lacking in 'fun'. Because while it is challenging and satisfying to work on developing your skills in a technical simulation, having them randomly fail or watching your opponent return a shot they couldn't reach just isn't fun - when you are working on a technically accurate game, maintaining consistency and believability is very important. And when that fails so does your game - so while in many ways Smash Court Tennis 3 is an excellent game, the fact that it double-faults at match point makes the number '3' in the title symbolic of it being the third best tennis game for the PSP (out of three).  
Tennis is a wonderful game in all of its many forms from the real-world court game to Pong through a variety of video games on just about every system ever made. Some sports have games made that mess with the basic concept, including adding more adult elements to make it more 'cool'. Fortunately all of the tennis games released to date including Smash Court Tennis 3 avoid all of the trends to add 'street cred' in the form of violent themes and strong language to games to make them more appealing. There is nothing inappropriate about the content in this game, despite the notation of 'mild violence' by the ESRB.
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