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Good tennis game, but not great. Hoping for Top Spin 2!

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: May 22, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After 3 weeks play, this game is losing its appeal. It's worth playing but much of what has been written about the game's deficiencies is very true. It is clear that the game is rigged. When controlling your play, there are obvious and frustrating times when movement or swing input is ignored.

On the other hand, at the surface level, the graphics and variety of tennis venues are very appealing. Actually, though I think they could improve on this too.

Here are my likes:
1. Great stadium feel when playing around the world, although a little too canned.
2. Overall good play which may help you hone real strategy.
3. Career play is a great way to keep the game interesting.
4. Controls allow moderate range of tactics that require real practice.

Here are my dislikes:
1. Controls are frustratingly inconsistent at times, usually when playing a real-life character.
2. 99.9% of the time, a safe shot is guaranteed, even as a beginner. Is that realistic?
3. Career play needs more emphasis on training to gain better skills - achieved #1 rank too easily.
4. Opponent's movement and speed is unrealistic at times.
5. Opponent's serves are too predictable and easy to return.
6. You really cannot aim your serve where you want to - controls too inconsistent.

Pretty good game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Top Spin is an extremely good game in that the graphics are brilliant. The players look very realistic and even the movement and strokes are excellent. It was a very good idea to add something where u can actually create your own player and make him/her play with greats such as Sampras , because once you beat them, you know you have mastered the game...
The only problem i would say with this game are that there is a lack of players.. I think its ridiculous to leave out players such as the Williams sisters , Roddick etc..

A very good tennis game, but could have been better...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: June 14, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First off, there's not much that I can say that hasn't already been covered by the other reviewers. This is a very good tennis game, but certainly not without it's flaws.

First, the pros. The graphics are amazing and very life-like. I loved the player animations, and the real-life men in the game look uncannily similar to the players they represent. Unfortunately, the women aren't quite as well done. The various courts and stadiums are well-rendered and beautiful. Also excellent is the sound, as all the effects are excellent and sound just the way they should. The career mode is a lot of fun, but entirely too short and easy. I'll cover that in my cons. And I would be remiss if I didn't mention the gameplay, because overall it rivals Virtua Tennis as being one of the best out there.

And now, for the cons. As mentioned numerous times before, the inability to save your game while in the midst of playing a tournament is beyond frustrating. Most people don't have the time to sit and play the game for an hour or more, but if you start a tournament that's exactly what you'll have to do. The game makers attempt to remedy this by making the sets only 3 games long, but this only serves to weaken the credibility of the game. An easy way to fix this would have been to allow for the saving of tournaments in between matches, as well as including an option of 3 or 6-game sets. That way those who have the time and prefer the realism of 6 games aren't disappointed. Seems simple enough to me, why didn't MS think of this? Also, the career mode is very short and entirely too easy to achieve the coveted number one ranking. I'm no video game master by any means, but by the second day of playing I had achieved the number one ranking and "Legend" status. Piece of cake, and once finished there really is no reason to go back and keep playing. One last gripe is the numerous cut-scenes during matches. For starters, there should have been an option to turn these off entirely. After seeing the same thing countless times, it gets frustrating to have to push a button two or three times just to get to the next point. The novelty of the excitement/frustration buttons wears off after the first match, and adds virtually nothing to the game.

With all this being said, the game is not bad. Even with all the cons I listed, it's a very enjoyable experience. Definitely the best tennis the Xbox has to offer. And with the price having now dropped quite a bit, it's certainly worthy of a purchase.

Almost there

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: July 16, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge virtua tennis fan and was really excited to get Topspin. Much of what has been said i agree with. The biggest problem is with the career mode like mentioned earlier it comes to an end. You get to #1 quickly and then win all the tournaments. If you continue in that career you can play the tournaments again but they don't go into your trophy case and don't show up as a headline. This can be fixed by following a calendar. Make it realistic. Every month there are tournaments and you can decide to compete if you qualify.

The other problem is with the AI and the drop shots. You can't slug it out from the baseline with any of the pros for two long without them hitting a drop shot which is easy to read. Serves are also way too easy. Also Pete Sampras never serves less than 100mph let alone 69?!

Game Play 5 Stars / Load Times 1 Star

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. I love the game play, the incredible graphics, and the player creator.

However, this great game is marred by *SLOW* and *ENDLESS* loading. It seems like the majority of time spent with this game is waiting for it to load. Also, the interstitials were an after thought. You see the same boring tips over and over again while you are waiting for the next segment of the game to load. And believe me, you will be doing plenty of that!

Even when you want to re-try a failed lesson or challenge, you simply can't replay it immediately. You have to wait for the whole thing to load again. AAAGH!

When you are on the court actually playing, this game is incredible. The experience is unfortunately diminished by load time issues.

I hope this is something that can be fixed via a download from XBox Live.

addition 12/2/2003...

I am adding this because my review sounded overly harsh and negative.

To sum it up, I definitely would recommend buying this game. I have played it for *many* hours since purchasing it. There are just a few annoyances that could be fixed. But overall, the game play is a solid 5 STARS.

Excellent game - very addictive!!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: November 28, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This is an incredibly addictive game. I have not played any other Tennis sims so I really have nothing to compare it to. Despite that, I can tell that this game is extremely well done. The graphical detail is tremendous. Especially the player models, animations, and courts - from the monster stadiums to quaint neighborhood courts. Others have noted the long load times but I have not once noticed that myself. Even IF the load times are longer, the game is well worth it once you get in. The learning curve is not as high as I anticipated. I was able to hold my own after an evening of practice. I am now looking forward to increasing the difficulty level. The only thing that keeps the game from getting a 5 star rating in my opinion is the occasional AI brain dump. Sometimes when playing, the Console player will react to a shot by turning his/her back to your player and just sticking the racket in the air, but this is rare and does not impact the gameplay that much.

One does not have to love Tennis to enjoy this game, but if you do, it makes the game that much better. I can hit shots in this game that I could never hit on the court.

Best Tennis Game Yet!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 1
Date: February 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

     This game is the epitome of what you should be looking for in a tennis game on the XBox system.  The controls of the game are simple, the graphics intense and the playability is through the roof.  Most of the time when a game like this comes out and there are high expectations people are disappointed, but once in a blue moon (and Top Spin proves this) the results can blow away even the highest of expectations.
     Both people new to tennis and people that have are die hard fans will be amazed at the likenesses of the characters in the game.  Pistol Pete and Michael Chang are just two of the characters that almost seem real when you're either using them or facing them across the court.  Unlike other console's tennis versions (I won't name names) a player can become very good without complicated controls, but they are available for those that want to continue to improve their game and win tournaments online.

     The dozens of courts you can play on are modeled after real life venues and are a big part of what helps the game pull together. But the cohesiveness falls apart just a little when you play with the women's tennis players.  This might be the last game you see with Pete Sampras and Chang in it, so if you're a fan of tennis and you want a momentum to his 14 grand slam titles this is it.  It is a little disappointing how easy it is to beat him considering he's got more skills in the game than anyone else, but watching him wait for a serve by leaning back and forth to the sides on the baseline is worth it.  It would have been nice to see the Williams sisters and Agassi and Roddick, but only so many big names can put their name to something before other names refuse.
     The name of the game is volley. The better you are at the net and the better you plan your shots the more you're guaranteed the win.

     My only real criticisms of the game are these: 1) You can't save your progress in the middle of a tournament.  This means you either eave the game on in the background while you go along doing other things or you quit the tournament which will effect your rankings in the career mode.  This can be very annoying when you are playing the first opponent in a three round tournament that is 2 out of 3 sets at best of 3 game sets.  2)You must learn to master the timing of the swing early on and sometimes instead of swinging towards the ball your player will sprint away from it.  This isn't something that happens very often, but it does happen if it is on a crucial point it becomes very frustrating.  3) Finally if you're a women's tennis fan and you buy the game for that reason you'll be disappointed.  Anna Kournikova and Martina Hingis are the only two names you will recognize.  And even worse the women look like they are shadows of what the men characters are.  They're programming is awkward, poorly pixilated and their manerisms aren't even close.
     The XSN network and XBox live features improve an already impressive game allowing you to take career players that you made yourself to the next level and compete with other custom players from around the world.  I'm a hardcore gamer and a huge tennis fan and had very high expectations.  This game met all of them and I'm sure that it will for you too.

don't waste time or money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 2 / 7
Date: January 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

yet another game in an ever growing list that bypasses the creation of challenging computer ai and instead relies on cheating a player to increase it's difficulty. the makers of this game should have taken their cue from the sega sports line of tennis games and seen why those games are so successful. i have sega's tennis game for playstation 2 and it offers fun and challenging gameplay without feeling like you're getting cheated on half the points.

top spin may well be fun as a multiplayer game but as a single player game it offers nothing but boredom and frustration. in career mode you spend the money you earn to build your character's various attributes. in the lower level tournaments your computer opponent barely even bothers hitting the ball back at you which is completely boring considering you have to beat three opponents by two sets that are played to three games. i've built several characters with varying strengths and it seems to make no difference where you put your skill points when you get to the grand slam tournaments. you need to win a grand slam to unlock the final career status and finish building your character. this is where the game really fails. you can have the computer completely outmatched and still stand no chance of winning because it continually pulls out impossible shot after impossible shot and at the same time makes your character inexplicably whiff at balls that just go floating by. computer risk shots are dead on whenever it needs a point and not close when it doesn't. when the computer is on the run on a point that it needs to win your shots start losing power for some reason and the computer eventually catches up and hammers a ball by you. on one point the computer dives for a ball well beyond the baseline and hits a lob perfectly placed in the far corner that you can't get close to and on the next it meekly taps the ball out of bounds when you would have no chance of getting to it. i could go on but i'm through wasting my time on this game, heed my advise and don't waste yours.

Great sports game; Incredible tennis game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: December 27, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This is the best tennis game of all time. Graphics: No doubt, the best tennis has ever looked. Gameplay: Great, fast-paced fun. You can spend 14 stars on various attributes. Move through the ranks as amateur, minor pro, pro, and star. To sum it all up, if you play tennis or not, you will have lots of fun with this game.

incredible and i dont even like tennis

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 1 / 3
Date: November 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

This game rocks. I dont even like tennis. The graphics and gameplay are awesome. A must have..
i havent tried live yet.

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