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TRAVELLING TO SYDNEY FOR THQ Loaded 06 last week, Virtua Tennis: World Tour on PSP was a no-brainer for the travel bags. Not only is it one of the best sports games on handheld, but we were looking forward to our first PlayStation 3 hands-on experience and the new version of VT that comes with it.

It's apt that we start our series of previews from THQ Loaded 06 as Virtua Tennis 3 was also the closest game to the door, standing opposite a gutted Wii shell and controllers on the other side of the entrance.

At least on the debug machine, Virtua Tennis 3 certainly lives up to our expectations of the PlayStation 3's technical prowess. VT3 looks better than Fight Night Round 3 does on Xbox 360, with character facial detail and authenticity a few rungs higher up the ladder, but while our favourite tennis game was also running on Xbox 360 at Loaded, we're not going to make a direct comparison to the PS3 version - even ignoring the debug status of the hardware, the Xbox 360 version was set up with a significantly inferior monitor. The colour channel cliping and resulting blown highlights and colour shifts in the Sharapova image in this article are not apparent in-game, presumably thanks to the PS3's excellent dynamic range and the decent CRT monitor we used to view this version. Overall, these renders represent the in-game image quality fairly well.

But there's no doubt this game is going to be something special if Sony's revision of PlayStation Net lives up to expectations. Gameplay options available at Loaded included a range of characters and a clay court environment. Overall, gameplay is virtually the same as World Tour on PSP, and that's definitely a good thing.

For those unfamiliar with the game dynamics, Virtua Tennis is based on a few authentic principles of the real sport. One of the most important is footwork: press the shot button early, and you can prepare for a heavy topspin or slice drive, but if you are not already in postition at this time, you will end up off balance as you reach out to the ball. The resulting shot will be weak and inaccurate, while making that extra step before executing the shot can result in some powerful winners, especially if you can achieve split-second timing on the volley while moving forward.

We'd like to see changes to the game's balance, as Virtua Tennis' strong points remain the serving and ground stroke systems, while volleys and lobs are generally far too defensively executed, but from what we played this hasn't happened. Thankfully the diving saves seem to remain toned down as they were for World Tour, but Virtua Tennis 3 still gives us the feeling it will become the dominant tennis game on console after Top Spin 2 did too little, too late and consequently lost much of its following. The addition of five-set matches to VT3 confirms Sega means business with its latest tennis title, as does the simultaneous release on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and PSP.

Virtua Tennis 3 will be released in Autumn 2007 (THQ says March). This will be the first time the franchise has had a simultaneous multi-platform release.

Players include world number one and 2006 Wimbledon Champion Amelie Mauresmo, and former champs Maria Sharapova, Venus Williams and Martina Hingis. Rising star Nicole Vaidisova, Lindsay Davenport and Daniela Hantuchova are also on the list of women's headliners.

The best player of all time and four-time Wimbledon Champion (and counting) Roger Federer leads the men's lineup. World number two, Rafael Nadal, joins Federer and former number ones Andy Roddick and Lleyton Hewitt, Tim Henman, David Nalbandian, Sebastien Grosjean, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Tommy Haas to complete the lineup of players previously featured in Virtua Tennis. New to Virtua Tennis 3 are James Blake, Mario Ancic, Gael Monfils and Taylor Dent.

Virtua Tennis 3 will again allow players to create their own tennis superstar to take part in a brand new iteration of the popular World Tour mode. World Tour mode will include ten new minigames. Also new to the series, Court Games will add multiplayer variants of the minigames.

Look out for more hands-on information on Virtua Tennis 3 as we head to Tokyo Game Show later this month.

Show me the screenshots!