Some partnerships are matches made in heaven. Strawberries and cream, for example, is a fine collaboration, as are headbands and long, sun-bleached hair. White polo shirts and shorts go quite nicely together, strangely enough, and you’ll probably never guess, but tennis and summer go very nicely together indeed. What better way can you think of spending those loose minutes and hours of your day than playing tennis on your PSP? Okay, so perhaps there are plenty of other things you could do, but you get our point. It’s almost as if it were written in the stars, but like another pair of star-crossed lovers, all may not be as heavenly a union on the PSP as we might have hoped.

Smash Court Tennis is obviously arriving with a pedigree having already made two relatively impressive appearances on the PS2, but we couldn’t honestly tell you that it really lives up to its billing. It was often criticised for being a Virtua Tennis clone in the past, but it doesn’t really come close in most respects. There are elements of the game that seem incredibly inventive, but they aren’t enough to make you come back again and again, and that’s because the gameplay simply doesn’t hold together. Smash Court Tennis is very sluggish for a game that features such ultra-fit professional sportsmen and women. It often feels like you’re trying to wade your way through treacle. Not exactly conducive to the kind of baseline shuffling rallies that make the sport so tense and exciting to play.

Considering that tennis is one of the oldest sporting sims in the videogame pantheon, you would think that getting it right wouldn’t prove too difficult. If Pong can do it, why can’t contemporary developers get it right? Knowing this only makes Smash Court Tennis even more frustrating to play, because it could have been so much more if this most integral part of the game had been executed properly. In terms of match options and diversity of game types, SCT3 is hard to beat. In this area, at least, Namco has got things right and has also learnt a thing or two from Sumo’s Virtua Tennis series. An RPG-styled Pro Tour mode offers plenty of longevity and superbly detailed create-a-character options. It’s not over the top like an EA game and has some limitations, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that you can create some very individual-looking personas for yourself.

Another idea pinched, but cleverly developed by SCT3 from Virtua Tennis is the completely ludicrous mini-games on offer. Where VT3 saw you battling toy crocodiles and dodging giant tennis balls, Smash Court Tennis 3 has opted for some really quite ingenious integrations of tennis with retro classics; namely Pac-Man and Galaga. The bright colours and bizarre locations make for diverting break from the main singleplayer game, as does the Bomb Tennis game that complements them. However, we have to come back to the fact the gameplay doesn’t hold up under scrutiny and as much as we wanted to enjoy these sideshows we really couldn’t.

The problems with SCT3 actually go beyond the basic mechanics of the game and right to the heart of the look and feel of the game too. At a glance you may think that it looks pretty good. The courts are very well put together, once again benefiting from a variety of styles, but it doesn’t disguise the fact that a lot of the character animation feels incomplete and the opponent AI is often completely incompetent. The training mode will teach you all about preparing for the shot before it reaches you, but on backhands in particular it sometimes seems like the racket is swung from nowhere to hit the ball. The AI only confounds matters. While the varying difficulty levels do offer some real differentiation in skill, no matter what the setting opponents often seem to stop running and let the ball fly past them.

Picking up a tennis game for the long hot summer ahead may seem like a smart idea, but you’d probably be best off letting this one pass you by like so many tennis balls. SCT3 flatters to deceive with so many positive features and ideas, but its core is rotten. There are plenty of modes and there is no shortage of inventiveness, but without the very basic necessities of the genre – like solid gameplay, smooth animation and an addictive quality that will keep you coming back – there really isn’t much left to this game to make it worth your while.

As portable tennis games go SCT3 has its charms and that may prove enough for some. There’s a cheap thrill to be had here and as a seasonal sports title it may still have some success, but it is no classic and in this oft trodden genre we really should have been able to expect more from this game. As it is, Smash Court Tennis 3 falls drastically short of our basic expectations and hopes.

Jon Gordon