Faces of gaming: Real vs Virtual

Above: Maria Sharapova, as she appears in Virtua Tennis 3 and in real life

While Maria Sharapova hasn't followed the same part-time player, full time face-on-every-advertising-board route as Anna Kournikova, she's just as successful at stopping men's hearts from 50 paces and rendering them useless when her matches are broadcast on telly.

Praise be, then, that the in-game edition of Sharapova isn't an unappealing mess of fleshy polygons and too-high hemlines. Admittedly, she looks a little robotic behind the eyes (in the game, gentlemen) but the likeness is sound. Even from behind.

Ben Richardson is a former Staff Writer for Official PlayStation 2 magazine and a former Content Editor of GamesRadar+. In the years since Ben left GR, he has worked as a columnist, communications officer, charity coach, and podcast host – but we still look back to his news stories from time to time, they are a window into a different era of video games.