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Not perfect, but very very realistic...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 51 / 53
Date: June 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have been waiting for a really great tennis game for the Wii since it came out. I have played Wii Sports Tennis many times and have found it to be loads of fun... But it wasn't very realistic. Enter, Top Spin 3... Much more realistic and much more accurate than the Wii Sports Tennis. The controls are not easy to pick up... Timing is very important in this game, much like real tennis. Body position is important too since you have to take a good back swing. I must tell you that I got quite a workout playing this game... The graphics are not the best, but I already expected that. The Wii was never designed to be able to give amazing graphics. It was designed to be interactive and fun. I have heard so much criticism about bad the graphics are compared to the Xbox, and PS3, but like I said, it's not about the graphics... In any case, they are not terrible by any means, and they don't take anything away from the game while playing. In fact, like real tennis, you have to keep your eye on the ball in order to play well, so you really don't even notice if the graphics are good or not... I found some things really interesting about the game play. I took several tennis lessons in my life, and I can remember the instructor stressing to me that I should start my back swing as soon as my opponent hits the ball and I see which side it's going to (my backhand or my forehand). The sooner you start your back swing, the better your position will be when the ball gets to you. This is very much like in Top Spin 3... Your player reacts to your back swing, and you must start it early in order to be in good position and take a good swing, and the wider and rounder the swing, the better. It also causes you to have a good follow though, which is very important in tennis. It's not like the Wii Sports, where you can just kind of jerk the controller and make the shot. I found this to be very much like real life. So, you use the nunchuck to move your player and after you start your back swing, to place your shot. You have much more control of the player and the game than you could ever have with Wii Sports. Another thing I liked is that, unlike in Top Spin 2 where you can almost predict what your computer opponent is going to do, in this game you can get into nice long rallys and wait for the right time to make your move. I do wish that you could create a player so that it would play more like you do in real life, and I'm sad that there is no online play, but the game is very much fun, and realistic. To me, there is nothing like interacting with a game. So, if you want amazing graphics and you want to sit on your butt and push buttons, then get the game for the Xbox or PS3... But, if you want to get into the game and feel like you are playing a real game, then this is for you... Once you get the hang of it, and the timing, you will find yourself loving the great passing shot you made, or the amazing volley... I hope this helps, enjoy...

Was Waiting a Long Time...For This...(sigh)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: June 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

As soon as I got my Wii last October, I was waiting for a good tennis game, since tennis and Wii seemed to be made for each other. Sega Superstars Tennis is just plain garbage, and then I found out the TopSpin3 was coming out for the Wii. The original date was the same day WiiFit was coming out, so they pushed the release of TopSpin3 back a month. I had heard great things about the Wii version of this game from people who had played advanced copies of it.

Finally, I picked it up the day it was released, having reserved a copy of it at a local store. Let's just say it was a different game than what I was expecting.

First, the players. As was mentioned in other reviews, there is NO Player Creator. Also, as far as oldies are concerned, there is NO Bjorn Borg or Monica Seles...Becker is the only blast from the past here (unless you count Henin). There are some made-up players, but here is a list of real players on this game:
MEN
Roger Federer
Tommy Haas
Gael Monfils
David Nabandian
Andy Roddick
Andrew Murray
James Blake
Mario Ancic
Tomas Berdych
Mark Philippoussis

WOMEN
Maria Sharapova
Svetlana Kuznetsova
Justine Henin
Nicole Vaidisova
Caroline Wozniacki
Amelie Mauresmo

Also, don't expect to find online gameplay, because it isn't there.

Gameplay itself wasn't bad, but there are a few things that make it goofy. First, you have to hold the WiiMote on the side. I don't know how that makes it feel more like a tennis racquet, but whatever. Because the controller is on its side, the "B" button is the key button that gets you into everything, and that takes a little getting used to. The stick on the Nunchuck both moves the player as well as controls the direction of the ball, so it's a little difficult running one direction and hitting to the other (for instance, running to the left and hitting to the right), but even that can get better with practice. Net Volleys are VERY difficult to execute with any consistency, so you are almost forced to stay at the baseline. Serving has a timing meter that you get to see AFTER you commit to your swing, so it takes a bit of feel to get serving down (so in other words the meter shows you WHETHER you hit a good serve, but it doesn't help you TO hit a good serve, because ou have already committed to the serve before the meter registers anything). One nice feature on the serve is that the "Z" button will automatically lollipop in a 2nd Serve for you, so you don't have to double-fault all the time until you get serving down.

There are various games to go through in a type of Career Mode. There are 11 such games, and it took me a while to figure out how to save in the middle of each of the 11 legs, but I have since learned that it can be done.

And that gets me to the manual. It is of very minimal help when learning this game. For instance, Mauresmo isn't even in the manual as one of the players.

The music has been mentioned as a plus. My favorite part of that is the fact that in a few of the screens, they play the disco song that Napoleon Dynamite danced to in the movie while he was helping Pedro win the class presidency. Now if they had made Napoleon Dynamite one of the players...that would have been pure genius.

All told, this is the best tennis game out for the Wii at the moment. I have had a lot of fun playing it over the past two days, but it almost seems too easy for me. I have never lost a set. Maybe it will get more challenging, but I doubt it. The more I play this, the more it seems like a game that is going to be going for half its original cost in a few months. I am glad to own it, but I hope TopSpin4 will be a vastly improved version of this game. Until then, this will have to be my tennis fix during the long Midwest winters!

1 Star only because I cannot go any lower

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 12 / 15
Date: July 13, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game is terrible. I rented this at the local blockbuster where they had several copies just sitting on the shelf. I decided to try renting before splurging to buy. Glad I did. There are many deficiencies with how this game is designed, as listed below:

1) It forces you to use the nunchuck which is an utter nuisance while trying to swing the racquet during play. I was forced to just use wrist movements with my right hand, while trying to point the player using the joystick with my left hand. Did the game programmers even play once on this game before they released it?

2) Like other sports games (tiger woods golf for example) on the wii, this game focuses more on the players than the game. You see the losing players throw and toss their racquets after every game with curses and frowns on their faces. This gets old real fast and is a real annoyance because I wanted to just focus on tennis and not the player attitudes. No way to turn off the player attitudes either. This makes it even more discouraging to play. The Wii Sports Tennis gets this absolutely right with no such nonsense frills.

3) The tennis court selections are nothing more than just surface color schemes. They add little value to game play.

4) The game play is painfully slow, with the swings and pointer movements taking longer to register in the game, so you land up losing all the time due to missed shots.

5) You have to deal with 6 different copyright notice screens and software company logos every time the game starts up on the Wii. This is a real nuisance.

6) The odd way of holding the remote makes it even more annoying. Why couldn't they have just designed it so the game could be played using the motion sensor and standard remote grips, instead of forcing a bizarre remote grip and nunchuck usage for Tennis?

All in all I have decided to skip this much hyped POS game and go back to Wii Sports for now. It is such a joy just to play tennis on Wii sports after experiencing this ridiculous Top Spin 3 nonsense. I wasted $5.99 to rent this.

Not what it was billed as

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: June 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

Im so disappointed. Two of the main reasons i decided to buy Top Spin, was that amazon billed it as having online playability, and also billed it as having a player creator that allows you to make your own 'people' that look real.

The wii version comes with neither. Also the tutorials are crap. I expect a tutorial to be interactive and tell you whether you're doing what you're supposed to do. Top Spin has no 'tutorials' in that sense, it just has 10 seperate screens where there are typed instructions for how to do a certain 'action'.

I will give points for the music-- its fantastic, but Im thorougly disappointed with everything else. Even the 'fun games' mode is nothing more than regular tourney play with a slightly different 'point' system.

So disappointing.

Lefty? Don't Buy!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 16
Date: June 25, 2008
Author: Amazon User

This game cannot be played left handed, which was a major dissapointment. Also cannot create player or play online. Save your money.

Need some time to swing well. Okay for multiple players but very little fun for single player.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 16
Date: July 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

****__Control
***___Family Fun
**____Individual Fun
***___Overall

--- Descriptions ---
1) Control:
Much more realistic control than Wii Sports but more complicated (i.e. You don't need to move the player and only need to swing in the way you like it in Wii Sports). The control is a five-star for me but not for everyone. So I have to give it a four-star.

For beginners of sport games, it might takes a while to learn the simultaneous motions of moving the player by left thumb, choosing the swinging type (i.e. regular swing, slice swing, etc.) by left index finger, and swinging the bat by right hand. Also, the timing of swinging takes a while to get use to. The experience of Top Spin does help to the timing. In Top Spin, you need to move the player to proper location and push the swing button pretty early than you imagine. Once you push and hold the swing button, the player only "slides" a little bit toward the moving direction due to inertia (i.e. slides more on the sand in Paris) and the direction control becomes the control of aiming. For example, if you want to move toward left and swing the ball toward the right, you need to do the following control: (1) click left button (2) when you think the player reach the good spot for swing even the ball is still on the way, click and hold the swing button (3) at the same time, you need to release left button and hold right button.

Similarly, Top Spin 3 is following the same theory as Top Spin. You need to run to the proper spot for swinging and swing the bat even the ball is on the way to the spot. Once the ball reaches the spot, change the direction control (by left thumb) to the direction for aiming. If these control can be performed smoothly and the player has good ability for the motion, you can see a very smooth and strong performance of the player. Beyond that, if you can choose proper swinging type (by index finger) and swing properly (bottom-up diagonal swing for top spin, top-bottom diagonal swing for slice) at the same time, you will become a pro of the game.

Because of the way to control this game, when the opponent serves a super fast ball, you might have difficulty to catch the ball. The timing between the ball is released from the opponent and the ball reaches the swing spot, which is the exact time you have to make a decision for swing, is very short. When you face this kind of speedy serve, you can only guess and make either forehand or backhand swings within that timing. And cross your fingers that you can reach the swing spot in time and switch the direction control for aiming.

2) Family Fun
I give the game a three-star for this section because you will need four sets of Nintendo Wii Remote and Nunchuck Combo to play two-on-two. Furthermore, it's difficult to have four competitive people who all get used to the control.

3) Individual Fun
Unlike Top Spin and Virtua Tennis 3, "create new player" is on longer available. Yes, it's fun to play with known players. But it's even more fun to create a player on your own and watch his growth through numbers of trainings. All you can do from the game is "Road to Glory Mode". It's a tree structure of events. You need to pass the events from the bottom of the tree and reach the glory by finish all the events. There are around 1x events totally. You can save after you pass some of the events and load to continue the rest next time.

4) Overall
I don't recommend to buy this game. If you want to enjoy the fun of swinging, you need to practice more or have some experiences from the previous game. If you want to have fun with your family, you need four Nunchucks. If you want to create a new player and build up his ability in the way you want, sorry this is not the game you want to buy. I will recommend the training games/tasks in Top Spin and Virtua Tennis 3, and the way you can increase the world ranking of your player in these two games.

A good video game. Bad Wii game.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: June 27, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I love the tennis that comes with Wii Sports - it's fun and easy. Unfortunately it is not a complete game. You can't play a full set, and don't have a choice of shots (like drop, etc).

I was hoping that TopSpin3 was the answer. Sadly it is not. It is essentially a tennis video game adapted to use the Wii controller, instead of a full Wii game.

For example. No backswing is necessary for backhands. You just swing and it does the work for you. We played this a few minutes last night, then switched back to Wii Sports tennis and had way more fun.

Hopefully Nintendo will build out each of the games that comes with Wii Sports and sell them as fuller, richer individual games.

A Shoddy Tech Demo, but Full-Priced

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 9
Date: July 03, 2008
Author: Amazon User

As a fan of playing tennis, I was very eager to try Top Spin 3. Since I use my Wii for exercise as well as entertainment, I like to play sports games -- especially tennis ones -- to get some activity. However, although I was initially looking forward very eagerly to Top Spin 3, I found that its execution was seriously lacking.

For one, there are only a handful of players even available, some of which aren't really all that intuitive to guess. I'm not a follower of professional tennis very closely, but even I could see that there are some glaring omissions. Also, there is no character creation, so the individual element is completely absent. They added a few original characters, but they somehow felt that they could not even include a rudimentary character creation mode? Sloppy.

What is most sloppy, however, and utterly disappointing is the game itself. No difficulty settings means that the unforgiving and often very bad control scheme has to be accustomed to on the fly. A pathetically inadequate tutorial does not excuse this fundamental omission. Furthermore, the controls themselves are as far from intuitive as possible; the controller is, for some reason, held sideways. The player's character moves on-screen in a stuttering mess that frequently prevents him from reaching an adequate point from which he may return the ball. The controls, which are supposed to mimic the player's own movements, rarely do this and are token at best. Typically you will try for a special shot exactly as the tutorial instructed, only to have it ignore your movements or misinterpret them.

That doesn't even begin to address the other fundamental problems it has, such as the fact that it doesn't feel like you actually control anything. Even the pop-up help instructs you to time your swings to match the on-screen player. Why, then, are we instructed to swing at all, if the game itself tries to anticipate our swing and then make us match theirs?

I thought that Top Spin 3 would surely be more satisfying than Sega Superstars Tennis which, while a pretty good game, lacked in tournaments and was too harsh when it came to unlockables through them. There also wasn't that much responsiveness depending on specific motions by the player, which Top Spin 3 was supposed to address. Unfortunately, however, it didn't. Sega Superstars Tennis remains a vastly superior game, both in entertainment value and tennis authenticity, even with the super moves.

To boot, Sega Superstars Tennis also had three control schemes, which Top Spin 3 would have benefited from; the movement in Top Spin 3 is atrocious and unresponsive at the worst times. Having an option to handle it automatically would have been a great relief. However, they opted for the extremely awkward option of holding the Wii remote sideways, for no valid reason.

All in all, Top Spin 3 plays like an unfinished tech demo that should never have left the studio. It's a poor excuse for a tennis game, but moreover it's a poor excuse for a game overall. With horrible music, barely adequate sound effects (and an absolutely gratingly annoying umpire/judge voice that belches out his calls), and mediocre graphics, it looks like an unfinished PS2 game that they thought they could slap a full asking price on and sell.

This game isn't even worth bargain bin trips. Give it a miss and buy Sega Superstars Tennis instead, or wait for a more satisfying realistic tennis game. Top Spin 3 isn't it. In fact, it isn't much of anything at all.

This game calls for/teaches real skill...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 19, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I carefully read a few reviews before purchasing this game, and I suggest you do so as well. First off, after some regretable language while getting used to the game, my husband and I really enjoy Top Spin 3. I think because it's not quite a "gamer's" game. If you want a tennis game where you can sit on the couch, just move your hand a little, don't have to worry too much about position, then stick with the Wii's Pez-like people version. If you want to train your brain to think about where to position the ball and your serve, how to use two remotes at once (the regular Wii-mote and the Nunchuck are necessary), to experience how tennis plays on different surfaces, compete in numerous tournaments, and run around your game room like a maniac, then Top Spin 3 is for you. We're actually using it as an indoor workout, and a way to train our brains for outdoor tennis as well. It's not quite the same as the real thing -- I mean, who uses a Nunchuck in real tennis?! But when I play for real, I now think a lot about position and strategy. No, you can't play online. No, you can't create your own player. No, you can't play left handed. That's why we're rating it a 4, so the next generation will hopefully be corrected. You can save matches you've won, which is great. And there are tons of players to choose from, so you can even be a player with different skill sets; e.g., great server or fast runner or great volleyer. I hope this review really helps you. Enjoy!

NO PLAY FOR LEFTYS!!!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 6 / 11
Date: June 29, 2008
Author: Amazon User

THIS GAME SUCKS!! How can a tennis game be released that does not play left handed! I guess if Rafa Nadal, Jimmy Conners or John McEnroe (all hall of famers & lefty's) wanted to play they should forget about it. Wii Tennis (a cartoon game) can be played lefty and this supposedly realistic game can't? The programmers who made this game are a joke to their profession and are seriously LAZY! Also, you can't create your own player. DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!

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