Virtua Tennis 4

Everything I've ever played on Move suggests that it works exactly as it's supposed to, and Virtua Tennis 4 is no exception. Shots land where you want them to, slice or spin in the intended direction, and the added visual feedback of the racquet on-screen gives it an edge over VT2009 on MotionPlus, which often left you wondering what you were doing that made the ball edge out of play every time you hit it to the right.

Lobs, slices and top-spin are all self-explanatory, and there are no buttons involved. Drop shots, as a consequence, are a learned skill – one I couldn't learn in my allotted time with the game, despite my best efforts. Virtua Tennis 4 will need a good set of tutorials and good player feedback to acquaint its players with the finer points of tennis.

Movement left and right is automatic at the moment, but that's being worked on. What you can do is move into the net to put pressure on your opponent by running up closer to the screen. This is dodgy at the moment – the PlayStation Eye presumably can't see you as well up close, and it tends to completely misread your hits when you're playing at the net, turning smashes into lobs – but Virtua Tennis 4 is still a work in progress, and by the time it comes out net play should feel as smooth and natural as playing from the baseline, claims our apologetic demo guide.

I'm more concerned about the amount of space required to play, assuming you have to run up to and away from the screen at regular intervals. I don't have a tennis-court sized living room. I have a normal-sized living room stuffed with plastic tat from Japan and a ludicrously oversized desk. An enthusiastic swing and I could knock a Majora's Mask figurine into a whole set of Animal Crossing miniatures and start a toy avalanche. It's hazardous.

If you've never been convinced that 3D is going to change anything in gaming, Virtua Tennis 4 is proof to the contrary – the change in perspective from top-down tennis to player's-eye-view seems designed to show off the effect. Impressive as it is, though, I can't tell whether it helps you to actually play better; that judgement will have to be reserved for long-term play. And it's worth remembering that for the 98% of people who aren't even considering buying a 3D TV, it won't matter either way.

The Move integration is another matter. It changes everything, not only how you play the game, but how you'll want to play it. VT2009 felt like a half-step compared to this. Motion control is finally being applied in ways that work, and it's accurate enough now to be more than a novelty. It's a shame that such a lot of bad will has been built up around it in the gaming community, because it's got more potential for traditional games now than it's ever had.