What about the courts?
Glad you asked. They're wonderful. You can play the game in a plethora of locations, and each has its own quirks. For instance, there's a court situated outside the Houses of Parliament where you can see Big Ben and double decker London buses driving past. This is a familiar theme throughout the world. You can play in Milan (scooters swoop along the streets), New York (the traffic is grid-locked), Hong Kong (bicycles happen by, naturally) and best of all, there's Adventure World where theme park rides snake along the side of the court. You can play on traditional lawns, clay and hard courts, too. The maddest 'surface' is the Great Barrier Reef where dolphins swim beneath a glass-topped court.

What makes Smash Court such fun, then?
In a nutshell, its simplicity. Each of the four PlayStation pad buttons produces a different type of shot, but you can administer pace and angle using the directional buttons or the Analog stick. The game is Dual Shock compatible, so you get gentle jolts when you thwack the ball. Best of all is when the Multi-Tap is plugged in and four people go at it in a doubles match. This is a real hoot. Competitive, yet fun. And ridiculously addictive.

This doesn't sound like a 'preview'!
Sorry. The game isn't finished yet, as the invisible Anna Kournakova will testify, but Namco simply cannot louse it up from here on in. Recent additions include a 'bomb' game where you smack a ball at your opponent hoping to blow them up. The explosion is determined by a clock which lets you know how many seconds will pass before the incendiary device explodes. Other neat bits to report include the practice section where a bear called Conch smacks balls at you like those tennis ball machines you only ever see in American films. A bit of tidying up here and there, and Anna Kournakova's Smash Court Tennis should prove a victory for common sense.


*Easy to pick up, yet progressive gameplay
*A wealth of fantastic, quirky tennis courts
*London buses
*Brilliant four-player game
*Not that different from the last version