Top Spin 3 [X360]

This year the left and right triggers are being brought into a whole new world. No longer will you have to worry about charging up a meter. Now you'll just need to be mindful of your positioning on court. If your opponent tosses up a lofty approach shot within your service box it might be time to step up and try to slam on the right trigger when you go for your shot, thus adding more power. Or maybe if you're looking to approach the net, put your opponent out of position and then put it away with an easy volley the left trigger, which puts the shot just a bit closer to the line, is the way to go. Each trigger makes your shot harder to nail but mastering when to use these risk shots effectively can quite often mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Mistakes or "unforced errors" as they're known in tennis, are something that Top Spin 3 is adding to the formula for the very first time. Now your stat sheet will no longer read 45 winners with zero errors. Tough, out-wide serves will now yield errors, regardless if you're going to the game's safest shots. Players miss, even Federer, on tough shots and it adds to the feeling of authenticity to see this finally in the game.

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If there's one aspect of present-day tennis that Top Spin 3 is still missing, consequently making this game feel like it's stuck in the '80s, is emotion (mental tenacity). Watching tennis in this day and age is no longer a quiet gentleman's game (go watch Agassi against Blake under the lights at the 2005 US Open to see what I'm talking about). It's a game of yelling, fist pumping and waves flowing through the crowds. The fact that Top Spin 3 ignores this is troubling and detracts from the excitement.

The sport of tennis is represented extremely well within the game engine of Top Spin 3. Player models look accurate for the most part, though Fed is a bit chubbier than he should be, especially after that bout with mono earlier this year. Their animations are impressive, only occasionally looking amiss with a ball that doesn't strike the strings quite right (excluding the purposeful mishits). It's also nice to see Top Spin 3 ditch the wacky cloth physics as both players' clothes and hair now bounce and flow with a realistic flair.

There is still work to be done within Top Spin 3. The AI needs a bit of tuning and we haven't seen the full depth of the career mode (any sports game's truest test of legitimacy) just yet, though the character creator is just as deep as anything you'd find in Tiger Woods and allows for some truly gruesome deformations if that's your thing. The presentation value still isn't quite there but the gameplay is some of the best -- and most difficult -- we've seen in a tennis game.

Stay tuned for our full review for PS3 and Xbox 360 close to the game's ship date of June 23. For now, feast on boatload of exclusive media.

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