Top Spin 2

"Fun and strangely addictive"

Top Spin 2

It's the same with all games with a simple premise such as this isn't it? Tennis. Not the most complicated sport in the world to understand and hardly the most action-packed. Now I've got nothing against tennis, but it's hard to deny that there's a big difference between actually and physically playing a sport and watching it being played, quickly raising the question 'Is playing a game entirely devoted to a ball bouncing from one end of a court to another going to be any good?' And, as is normally the way of things with games with a simple premise, the answer is a resounding 'Yes'.

All that racquet
The big benefit with Top Spin is it's pick up and play factor. It's good to have a game where you can easily play for an hour as a diversion from whichever shooter you were playing on before. But saying Top Spin is no more then a diversion is doing it a great injustice. When you've played a few matches and picked up the relativity simple controls you will find yourself playing mostly in the career mode. The level of design that you can put into your player is quite deep which the amount possible faces you can create high. Not only that, but while playing in your career further customisation is possible with new tops, shorts, trainers, hats and even iris colour throughout.

A process of elimination
As you start to play in some of the early tournament held at local tennis centre's across the globe and not at the big 50,000+ stadia you may notice a reoccurring theme, that is you are constantly having your ass handed to you by players only a couple of points off. This is for two reasons: one, Top Spin is a difficult game to master, it involves knowing where to run and how and where to hit the ball, master it though and your game goes up tenfold. The other one reason is because your stats do actually make a big difference. You'll notice how inaccurately the ball ricocheted from your side of the court and straight out of bounds whenever you try to aim down the sides. To compensate for this, the games has a list of types of training for you to undertake with several different coaches specialising in different aspects of the game. These training sessions normally amount to 'Hit the ball here' or 'Knock these objects over' and amount to the most challenging aspects of the game, getting the highest ranks on them demand a lot of skill, and luck.

Just a player of the game
Top Spin doesn't just have 398 made up opposition characters, but a number of top tennis stars all of which are made out like their real life counterparts and look very impressive. Just as impressive are all the other characters you will play against, all of the looking unique with their own stats, previous game scores and area preferences (such as baseline play, net aggression etc) keeping you on your toes. All of these players with the exception of the PC has their name in the score keeping voices and in all languages (yes there's more then just one), although it can be a bit annoying to hear your player constantly referred to as 'player one'.

One problem is the camera placement always being at one side of the court. While this is perfectly fine when you play on the near camera side, when you get on the other side of the net, things get a little annoying. The problem with depth perception in video games is made all the more obvious here as you run a good few meters behind the ball. You also are technically playing backwards so you're hitting the ball the wrong way. There is another angle in the single player for this, but it's very low and hard to use (and still has a problem with depth perception.)

Overall
On the whole Top Spin is a fun, addictive and not overly repetitive considering all you're doing is trying to knock a ball from one end of a court to the other. The multiplayer is as fun as you would expect and the game features full Live support to adding to the replay factor.

The game makes a good contrast from a lot of the other releases on the 360 and is a very good game in itself. If the only and ever play one genre then this game isn't really for you, if you're willing to try different things then give it a go.

Graphics: 8/10
Sound: 7/10
Replayability 8/10
Overall 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/22/07