Xbox 360
Ah tennis, the game of the gods, a rip-roaring, white knuckle contest of skill and true grit. Well okay not really, but just how do you make tennis games interesting after so many different takes on the sport?
You start by taking the best bits of other games at the moment and cramming them into one nice package. For starters, short games leave gamers feeling underwhelmed and quite frankly, ripped off. So, the main mode here is a career format that will take you a fair deal of time to conquer.
Starting out as a rookie player, you advance through each season, schooling chumps and earning stat increases to improve everything from your backhand, smashes and stamina, so you don't have to see the realistic sweat engine kick in that often!
Part of Top Spin's appeal is how easy it is. Not to say it's simple but there are three basic shot types, each mapped to its own button. However, depending on where you stay and how you angle the left stick before you connect with a return, the arc, distance and power of your shot will vary.
This is where its best and worst features come in, depending on your skill level. For example, the difficulty in career mode ramps up considerably in a short space of time, making for one hell of a learning curve. There is a tutorial mode laying down the laws of the game, but in the heat of a frantic rally you tend to forget which button and direction does what, resulting in cheap wins for your opponent.
With perseverance though, you will start to grasp these subtle nuances and suss out how different opponents play, but if you don't want to spent that much effort on learning the gameplay inside and out, you will get very angry and very bored very, very quickly.
However, with a shiny veneer and nice sound (TS3 has a very satisfying 'THWAP'), there is a lot to love here. There are tons of accessories to unlock in career mode such as new racquets and outfits for your rookie and is perfect for those with a penchant for collecting everything a game has to offer.
Online mode is pretty sweet too. Here you can play singles, doubles or make custom tournaments. Fairly basic, but still good fun and a nice addition to the game.
So is this game really for you? Well, it really depends on your take on sports sims. Give the game an extra point if you feel you will be up to the task, decrease it a tad if you feel you can't be arsed putting the hours in, but all in all, this is a highly accomplished and fun title providing a big enough challenge for those who thought tennis games were becoming run of the mill.
