The balance between arcade and simulation is frequently the greatest battle a game developer will fight in his head. Games such as Sensible Soccer and Microsoft Golf are examples of how sports titles used to be viewed as a simple arcade experience. But with games like Tiger Woods adding more and more technical detail into what is simply swinging a club back and forth it wouldn't be long before all the other sports were adorned with more sim-like details.

Top Spin 3 aims to place distance itself from the Virtua Tennis camp, which prides itself on fast-paced and easy-going gameplay which you can pick up and pretty much master in minutes. Gone are power bars and flashing icons of the previous TS games, to be replaced by sheer instinct alone. That's right, returning the ball is no longer a case of standing in the right place and holding down the appropriate button, or releasing the button when the power bar reaches full to serve. You now have to release the button before the ball reaches you to swing and release the button before the ball drops to serve.

It does feel like a bit of a chore at first, as it's not just the shots that have been given the realistic treatment - players now move with realistic inertia so can no longer stop on a dime and dive the other way if you misjudge a shot. When combined with the new stamina system TS3 feels a lot slower than the other tennis games about, and if you can't persevere through the first couple of hours of the learning curve then you may not have the stomach to continue.

Once you get past the controls you're rewarded with a very realistic and engrossing tennis game. Winning isn't a case of hitting it alternately down the left and right tramlines until someone can't reach it; a good variation of shot types, depth and speed is needed.

Not all of the technical controls are that 'simple' and some are so tricky to use they're not even worth risking. In addition to the four shot types mapped to the face buttons (lob, slice, straight and top spin), you can also make drop or lob shots by moving the right analogue stick. To do a drop shot, for example you have to hold up on the right stick and flick it down when you would normally release the button. While doing this you have to pull back on the left stick at the last moment to aim it close to the net. These types of shots are only possible in certain situations, usually when the ball is approaching you slowly and straight-on, but even when they are there is still a large chance that it will not work. Juggling between the face buttons and the right stick turns things into a confused, complicated mess and should never have been included - better to map all shots to the analogue stick, or none at all.

The stamina bar is meant to lower accuracy, speed and power if you knacker yourself running about in long rallies for too long. Your opponent also has a stamina bar so by getting them to run about all the time it should work in your favour. However with their pulse beating so fast they should be in cardiac arrest they still seem sprightly enough and don't even seem to fluff serves. The players just seem to get sweaty faster. Done properly this could be a great tactical element that is present in real tennis and would make TS shine. At the moment it's just another tacked-on underdeveloped gimmick that doesn't work.

A minor niggle is the lack of randomness in where the ball goes. Time a shot correctly and it'll go quite far into the corners. Time it badly and it'll land somewhere in the middle. Sometimes you'll fluff it into the net our out for no reason. However, I have NEVER hit the top of the net and have it drop either side, never has it hit ANY of the base or tramlines. This lack of randomness in shots just highlights the fact that it's not real life and is a just a game and the last thing I want when playing games is a reality check!

In addition to the standard create-a-player option for career mode, which is quite extensive, there are also a nice number of recognisable stars to play with too, ranging from Federer, Roddick, Sharapova and Andy Murray to oldies like Boris Becker and Bjorn Borg. The list isn't massive and I haven't heard of some of the players towards the end of the list but it's nice to have some big names to play with, even if Andy Murray is considerably better looking than his real life counterpart!

For all the great presentation and tense games you can have in TS3 there's one thing that's surprisingly lacking: atmosphere. Whether you're playing at some run-down tennis court under a bridge in Chicago or at Roland Garros your points are always applauded by the same stale crowd that's about as exciting as the audience of Countdown dosed up on valium.

Top Spin 3 has had a nice crack at realism and the changes have had mixed success. The removal of power bars and realistic player movements is a welcome change but the stamina bar, risk shots and fiddly right stick shots were poorly implemented. But if they iron out the problems with these and make the games feel more atmospheric then the next Top Spin could be a great tennis game.