Top Spin 2

"A good debut for tennis on the 360 (2007#2)"

Top Spin 2 (TS2) is the sequel to the original Xbox tennis title that went under the old Xbox Sports Network (XSN) moniker. Microsoft sold the developer that made the original game (Indie Built) to Take-2 Interactive, and now they are releasing the sequel under their 2K Sports label for the 360 at a next-gen “budget” price of $39.99.

2K got quite the lineup of men and women stars to grace TS2. 24 pros in total are in the game, along with the ability to create your own player. Arguably two of the top tennis stars today are in the game with Roger Federer and Andy Roddick. There are also two of the top women players in here with Maria Sharapova and Venus Williams (but her sister Serena is notably absent).

TS2 controls almost exactly like its predecessor. There are still all the standard shots available like Slice, Top Spin, and Lob for example. You can also still hold the right and left triggers to deliver a quicker shot than normal that will require precise timing in order to catch your opponents off guard. There are a couple new tweaks to the engine in the sequel. When executing Slice, Top Spin, and Lob shots they will no longer always go in bounds like before. Those shots involve precise accuracy on how you aim the analog stick to make sure they stay inside the court. Naturally, higher rated players will have a little bit more give in how far they can aim the analog stick over. At first this was very irritating, but I got use to it and found it to make gameplay more challenging.

The other major gameplay addition is a meter that builds up as your player wins points. Once the meter is filled you can use it to unleash a quick return without holding the triggers like before. This is a handy little feature that I like to save for game deciding points. Overall the gameplay works well, although it may be a bit too sim for some people's liking. I still prefter the gameplay in Sega's Virtua Tennis more than this that allows players to pull off a few more flashy shots and even dive to make a shot just out of their reach. If Indie Built can work on adding some of those aspects to their future games, then the gameplay would be perfect for me.

Career mode is where the bulk of your time will probably be spent. It takes placer over a five year season, where you start ranked 200th and your obvious goal is to finish on top. You are assigned a coach that you can do mini-games with like in the original TS in order to boost your stats. Your player is started in the Minor Pro rankings, and will work his way through Major Pro, Masters, and ultimately Slam rankings with the big dogs. There are also special events that occasionally happen to participate in like double tournaments or sponsored events. One small new touch in TS2 that goes a long way is the ability to sim through sets or entire games of tennis which helps out a lot in saving time to go through early tournament round cannon fodder. I was pleasantly surprised at how good and accessible the Career mode is where unlike a lot of other sports titles there isn't an abundance of menus to overwhelm you here.

For being a “budget”-priced 360 game, there is a good amount of depth. The create-a-player has a good amount of customization to it, almost at Tiger Woods quality. Besides the amazing Career mode, there is also online singles and doubles action. It is worth noting you cannot team up with your friends online in doubles like you could in the original TS through game invites unless you bring them online as a guest from your own 360. Aside from those two most appealing gameplay options, you can still do offline exhibition matches against the CPU or friends in singles and doubles. My friends and I spent many of hours playing doubles against each other, if you have a lot of friends I highly recommend you do the same. There are also party games that are supported for up to four players which involve a lot of the mini-games from the Career mode that serve as a nice little diversion from the main game.

Graphically, TS2 doesn't look a heck of a lot prettier than it did on its Xbox debut. It looks a little more polished in some areas like cut scenes in between points which show close ups of players celebrating or complaining if a shot went their way or not. The courts also look nice, and the developers put a lot of work into adding a good amount of scenery in them to make them feel special. Overall though, TS2 looks almost exactly like it does before. The audio has not changed a lot either, though Indie Built did a fantastic job with the original so they didn't really need a whole lot to improve on. All the sound effects are right on the money, and the umpires sound just as you expect they would. I like the upbeat, easy going soundtrack they incorporated, but there are only just several tracks to it and I quickly found myself putting on my custom tunes.

Overall, TS2 is a very well rounded game of tennis. If you really want to get your tennis frills, then you cannot go wrong with Top Spin 2, especially with it being one of the few 360 games to start off priced at $39.99. However, keep in mind Virtua Tennis 3 is going to be out in several months and if it lives up to its previous installments then it will probably outshine TS2 by a bit, so if you have the patience you might just want to wait for that instead.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 09/05/06