Mario Tennis Open releases Sunday, May 20, for the Nintendo 3DS. Here are my quick thoughts on the game so far.

Gameplay is quick and smooth, and the controls are simple and precise. This is tennis after all, so there's not much to it besides blasting the ball by opponents, lobbing it over their heads or tricking them with a drop shot. There are touchscreen controls available, but I stuck with using physical buttons. All the fun of the past games is here.

While overall content seems a little light, I didn't really mind not having an RPG mode seen in the Game Boy versions of Mario Tennis. I didn't get bored blasting my way through the various singles and doubles tournaments, and playing through the short but sweet mini-games. The Super Mario Tennis mode is the coolest one of all them, and I always went back to play it again.

There are a ton of items to unlock, which are used to customize your Mii to your tennis liking. Content is unlocked by playing exhibition and tournaments, so you can do double duty by collecting trophies for characters and unlocking stuff at the same time. But you still have to collect coins to purchase the items. If you want to get and do everything, it's going to take a ton of dedication.

I didn't do much online play since the game isn't out yet and searching for games took a while. But the few matches I did play, I had no problems. Matches are really quick, and I didn't experience any game-breaking lag. Obviously it'll be more crowded after release.

Check out my full review soon at theoaklandpress.com.

Get even tinier random thoughts at www.twitter.com/JeffHoard921