Top Spin 3

Serving up a treat, or just a load of balls?

Well it’s that time of year again, the great unwashed are heading down to Worthy Farm hell bent on covering themselves with mud (amongst other things) for Glastonbury. This can mean only one thing, Wimbledon is upon us, and as a result; the flourish of Tennis games is here to tempt our sofa-sports impulsiveness!

There are 4 recognised key players when it comes to Tennis games: Wii Tennis, Smash Court Tennis, Virtua Tennis, and last but by no means least, Top Spin.

Here in it’s 3rd incarnation, Top Spin 3 is the first to hit the shelves this year and right from the off it’s clear this isn’t just an annual facelift like so many other sports titles get these days. Make no mistake, compare this title to Virtua Tennis 3 and you’d be forgiven for calling it a ’Sim’. If you skip the training school and go straight for an exhibition match, even if you pick the strongest male player up against the smallest weakest (cutest?) female player, she is still going to comprehensively kick your behind all the back to the main menu. I’d even bet you’d probably not managed to hit the ball in the first game.

The more patient player will be rewarded for heading to the Tennis School to learn the basics, and you really do need to learn the basics from scratch.

Previous tennis games have use a shot system whereby the earlier you get the shot button pressed, the harder the shot will be. While Top Spin 3 employs this same logic, the key innovation is that you must also accurately time the button release, allowing your player to complete the shot animation and strike the ball at the correct moment. This will feel completely alien at first, frustrating many players, but stick with it and suddenly it ’clicks’ and you’re on your way.

Serving also has a new style, you can opt for the standard ’hold for power, release for timing’ button press serve, or you can try one of the more tricky slice serves. These are achieved by holding the right analogue stick down, then at the opportune moment, rolling the stick up left or right (depending on what way you want to curve it) These serves are my personal choice and once mastered, are incredibly lethal and often cause your opponent to miss-time his return.

Players of previous Top Spin titles will be keen to know about the inclusion of more ’Risky’ shots after the unrewarding efforts before. This year they’ve gone with a slightly new style using the trigger buttons for either power, placement, or if you’re really brave... both.

Once again the risk:reward ratio is often too great to be used unless you’re 40-0 up on serve as unless your timing is near perfect, chances are you’ll smash the ball into the net or considerably wide. Certainly these shots are not to be considered when your player is under pressure or not in control of the rally.

At the time of writing this reviewer is still yet to master these shots, but my timing is slowly getting better and I’m certainly noticing the benefit when a successful risk shot finds it’s mark.

Core game mechanics aside, the game has 4 main modes - Exhibition, Tournament, Career and Online play. Exhibition is as you’d expect, allowing you to pick your players, location and difficulty, Tournament mode allows you to jump into a full blown tournament of your choice, starting at the last 32 (or 16 for the smaller tournaments)

Career mode is the main attracting of the single player offerings; this begins with you creating your player. Like previous 2K/EA games the player creator is incredibly in depth, allowing you to spend as much time as you like making the perfect player. Thankfully there are also a set of pre-set templates for the less creative/patient amongst you.

Once created, your player will have a measly 30 points out of a total 100 in his abilities. These are: Service, Forehand, Backhand, Return, Service, Volley, Power, Stamina and finally Speed. It may not sound like much, but thankfully you’re not going to step on the court against the likes of Roger Federer just yet!

Attribute points (XP) are gained by winning matches and progressing further into a tournament, with each step increasing the reward.

After a relatively short amateur career you’ll be granted a Junior License, this will allow you to step up to more structured competitions. From here you’ll get your Pro License and eventually a Legend status. Unlike Virtua Tennis 3, you will not face the same set of real life Pro’s every step along the way, the game has a large set of fictional characters who will also slowly rank up. This means that when you finally get to play your favourite Pro, it’ll actually be a milestone and a significant moment.

It’s worth noting that regardless of your difficulty setting, you still gain the same XP, and the difficulty can be changed at any time (except during a match). This can be seen as either a positive thing for people who simple struggle with the game, or negative as many people will race through on ’Very Easy’ hoping to rank their player up as quick as possible.

Online play has 2 key modes, World Tour (ranked) and Player Match (unranked). Unranked is basically an online version of the Exhibition mode, with the same choices.

Ranked play is quite structured, you have to use your created player, this means that nearly everyone you play online will have a slightly different spec player, and also very different looking player (some people have created total fashion disasters)

The key thing in World Tour mode is that there are seasons, which last 15 days, and players compete in tournaments in the hope to be the Rank 1 player come the end of the season. There are season leaderboards, career leaderboards and also geographical leaderboards (based on the nationality of your created player) This kind of online depth should help the longevity of the title no end!

From a graphical standpoint, the visuals are impressive. The player animations are incredibly realistic, often mimicking their real life counterparts’ swing technique. Players jump for high bounces, stretch for drop shots, slide on clay and generally always look at home on the court. Player likeness is often hit and miss area with sports games, and Top Spin 3 is no different, some players look fantastic, right down to hair hanging over sweat bands, yet others look rushed and only bare a slight resemblance to real life.

From a negative point of view, the game is very much lacking in atmosphere during the matches. The crowds sound very flat and doesn’t really react very realistically to the action. As you progress from small club courts to full Grand Slam stadiums you don’t really feel the huge crowd like watching a major Championships on TV.

Another disappointing aspect is the limited number of real life Pros (10 men, 6 women, 3 legends). 6 female stars is simply not enough considering the stars in the current world top 10. There is a ’Download Content’ option within the game though so we can hope they add more players at a later date.

Overall Top Spin 3 is a solid polished game with a difficulty curve suited for longevity and practice. Where it lacks in the ’Pick up and play’ stakes, it more than makes up in depth and reward for dedication.

Pros