Top Spin

Added November 23rd, 2003 by Ice

Introduction:

Many considered Virtua Tennis the best tennis game ever created. People loved the simplistic gameplay, the great graphics, and the overall fun factor of the game. I was one of those people. I remember just sitting there playing for hours, never getting tired of the game. It was games like this that really made me feel as if my money was well spent, not wasted on a game that I would grow tired of in a few weeks. Being the first tennis game on Xbox, I was hoping Top Spin would give me that same feeling as Virtua Tennis did in the Dreamcast era. Turns out my hopes were answered. Microsoft Game Studios delivered a fabulous tennis game, which I now consider the best tennis game ever made.

Gameplay:

Top Spin is one of those games that you can just pick up and play, whether you are a fan of the sport or not. This is one of the things that make this game a true gem. It’s not only for hardcore tennis fanatics, but for everyone, whether you like to play and watch it on TV or not. The career mode is single player, but gives you access to new gear and clothes, stats, skills, and sponsorships that you will gain if you complete the sponsor’s tasks. One task was shooting a commercial by hitting the ball with the correct serve, and getting it into a bulls eye in order to make them look good.

When entering career mode, you will need to create a player. The first thing you will need to do is select the DNA and gender of your player, to change the way he or she looks. If you are happy with the result, you can go on. If not, you can continue to change them in ways such as eyes, nose, ears, cheeks, hair, chin, and brow. You can even add a break in their nose so they look like Owen Wilson. Attention to detail like this makes the create a player a joy to work with. Next is the sports shop, where you can pick the clothing and gear your new player uses. There are only a few of each to start out with, but as you progress through the career and become sponsored, more will be available. You can also buy new items at the shop once you gain some money. You still have a little bit of tweaking to do before you tie your shoes up and grab your racket. You must the dominant hand, the serve animation, and a natural talent such as power or speed.

When you hit “Finalize”, you will be greeted with a world map, showing you coaches’ houses, sponsors, tournaments, sport shops, salons, and airports.

Coaches’ houses are used to build your skills and masteries. Training is dependent on two things: Coins and Stars. Coins are used to buy training for your “Mastery” skills, such as Serve, Forehand, and Backhand. The training ranges in price by the current skill you have. It will be more expensive if you have 3 starts in a skill than it would be if you only had 1. Each time you train your player, you also lose a Star. You start the game with 14 Stars, so you have to choose wisely which ones you want to use for what skills. After they are gone, there is no getting them back.

Sponsors give you challenges and reward you with a sponsorship, which includes new gear and clothes.

Tournaments put you into several matches with the ultimate goal of going all the way and defeating your opponents for a trophy, money, and to move up in the rankings.

Sports shops let you buy new clothes and gear.

The Salon lets you change the hairstyles

Airports take you to different areas of the world, where you can find new places to train, and new tournaments as well as more sponsors.

As you get better, you will want to move from the minor tournaments up to the pro, and then major pro, and then grand slam and so on. Each time you do this you will face new opponents, and they will be much tougher than the previous ones.

As you earn respect and get a higher status, you will be able to adopt a new skill. There are 16 skills to pick from, but you can only learn one at a time. The statuses that you earn are Young Gun, Star, and Legend. These depend on the training done, the career winnings, sponsorship level, skills, and your rank.

Upon hitting start on the world map, the Nexus pops up. It includes:

Scrapbook – Contains the trophy room and status checklist

Rankings – View your current world rank

Player Sheet – Shows you your earnings, skills, and talents

World map – Brings you back to the map

Options and finally Quit.

Quitting automatically saves your progress, so you don’t have to worry about hitting a save button.

When you tire of career, you can just play exhibition, which lets you be one of the ladies, or one of the guys. You can play singles, doubles, and set your own tournaments up. No mixing the genders though.

While playing a match, you will take notice of a little meter labeled ITZ, or “In The Zone”. The better you do, and the more the crowd likes you, the fuller this meter will get, allowing you to do some insanely hard, yet rewarding power shot, which is much harder to hit than a regular shot. You can also fill the meter up by hitting the black and white button after a volley to show some reaction, be it throwing your racket down or pumping your fists in the air.

Graphics:

The best part about this game is the graphics. Never before have I seen such fluid animation, or such detailed models. The crowd is 3D, the refs are there, and the judges are there. The character models are some of the best I have ever seen in a sports game. The players grimace ultra realistically, smirk, and smile. The textures are high resolution and not blurry at all. The net moves as well, when it is hit by a ball or bumped by a player. There really isn’t a single thing wrong with the graphics I would note. I remember saying to myself “Man, I don’t know how anything can look better than this on the next gen consoles” about Virtua Tennis, I now know how, because Top Spin is the new king of graphics in the genre, no questions asked.

Audio:

There’s not much to be heard in a tennis match in real life. The crowd is quiet for much of it, only showing emotion when someone wins a game. The crowd in the game sounds good. The sound of the ball hitting the racket sounds good, the announcers are quiet for the most part but when they talk it’s not annoying like in most games. All the sounds in the game are adequate for their real life counterparts.

Controls:

The controls are so simple, yet so refined and solid. They go as follows:

A: Flat/Safe shot – A safe shot with no spin on the ball.

B: Topspin Shot – A shot with forward spin on the ball, which produces a high bounce.

X: Slice Shot – A shot with backspin that keeps the ball low.

Y: Lob Shot – A high arcing shot that can buy you time to get back into position or get your opponent off the net.

R: Risk Shot – A difficult to perform but powerful shot that will make it hard to return(Release when the bar is in the middle).

L: Drop Shot – A delicate shot that falls just over the net. Use it when your your opponent is playing too far back, to disrupt their rhythm.

Replay:

The replay of this game is quite good, actually it is very good. The career mode will provide hours of enjoyment, since you constantly want to get that next rank up, or that new skill. You can play against a friend, and best of all, you can play on Xbox Live. This alone makes the game worth the 50 dollars. No problems with lag at all so long as you have a good connection. Even if you don’t have XBL though it is still well worth the money. I never get tired of hitting the little yellow ball back and forth. I never thought such a simple concept could provide so much entertainment. But hey, I guess that’s how Pong was too.

Summary:

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: This is the best tennis game ever made. Whether you play it by yourself, with a friend, or over Xbox Live, there is something for everyone. The graphics are amazing, the controls are user friendly, the create a player is great. Before Top Spin came out, all I heard everyone saying was “It looks good, but how does it stack up against Virtua Tennis?” Well let me tell you, it does more than stack up against, it surpasses it in every way.