Topspin 3

This game is awesome, I'm not going to lie its amazingly difficult when you start and i was quite close to smashing my controller, giving up the game and writing a terrible review like some of the others. However once you get into the game and you've been to the tennis school and built your stats up you'll love it.

The reason its so difficult is due to the amazingly confussing controls, but like anything new you just have to stick with it and give it a chance and after a while it seems pretty normal.

If you actually play and like tennis, this game is so much better than virtual tennis 3, its much more realistic, you can serve aces, play passing shots and above all the players don't spend all their time diving around on the floor.

In conclusion if your looking for a challenge and a realistic game buy this, cause if you give it a chance you won't regret it. Its easily the best tennis game on the market.

Top Spin 3 is a very different kind of tennis game, and is geared more towards a simulation that any other tennis game ever made. What this means is essentially that there are four different kinds of basic shot (flat, top spin, slice, lob), and you have to hold down a button to bring the racket back, and release it to swing. The timing of the latter is what will frustrate a lot of people. This game is difficult, and is simply not accessible for the casual gamer. I expect that many will give up with this game before they have even scratched the surface. If you are not familiar with games or do not play games often, I would flat out recommend that you do not purchase Top Spin 3. If you do not like tennis, you certainly should not purchase the game. I imagine that plenty of people will purchase the game and not give it a fair chance because of the inaccessible nature of it.

In a way, that is a shame, because there is a lot that is positive about this title. The player creator is very decent, the career mode is well constructed, and the online World Tour mode is the best online tennis mode in terms of structure that has ever been created.

Yet the whole package does not come together as well as it should. Volleying is ineffective to all but the most skilled gamers, as lobs are too powerful and the timing of the volleys is very difficult to get to grips with. The serve out wide is too powerful, and is already overused to a horrendous extent online. The movement of the players is also problematic, and it just doesn't feel intuitive or responsive enough. Often balls will fly past you that you are convinced your player should have reached.

There are also some glaring omissions. Doubles has been unforgivably overlooked, and ranked online doubles doesn't even exist. The selection of real life players is fair but could have been better. Nadal does not feature in the 360 version, as he is a PS3 exclusive. This is bound to anger 360 owners after his success at Wimbledon. You also can't play with real life players ranked online, which means that you have to play through the entire career to have a chance of competing in online ranked matches. This will no doubt lead to players whizzing through the career to get to play online, which is a shame.

This review is in danger of sounding too negative, and I don't want it to be. The game is satisfying, and there are some fantastic moments online when you nail a cross court top spin shot and leave your opponent stranded. The game is competitive online, and the World Tour and career modes offer a lot of replay value and play time. If you like your tennis games and want something more simulation oriented, then I would recommend at least renting this. Just be aware that this is not the holy grail of tennis computer games, as much as it wants to be.

Well, Topspin3, the new revelation in the world of tennis video games. Or is it!. Well in my opinion probably. I got the game today and well i popped it in and was surprised. After reading reviews here and official reviews, i was a bit concerned. An average of
about 7-8/10 on the net usually means a game is OK and im looking for a good game. But after the urge of a new sports game for the xbox and the Wimbledon driving my interest in tennis i decided to go for it.
First thoughts. Wow! the graphics, are well, great, obviously other games have better graphics but sports games are generally known for their great gameplay but slightly inferior graphics. Anyway i understand graphics don't make a game.

So onto content, well i started off by heading to the topspin school which although very useful can be extremely annoying when you have to repeat the same shot over because you were "slightly late" on a shot even though it looked perfectly fine. But as i have read it is essential for new players to go through most of it. I have to agree. I think without it i would have been left for dead almost every point against the other players in exhibition if i had skipped the tutorials.

The player creator. I think is probably one of the best parts of the game. I think for the most part it is just a basic player creator in a sports game. Similar to the tiger woods games etc, but with a bit more depth and choice. But its the sculpt option that really turns this creator into an innovative part of the game. After choosing your favoured features you then have to option to tweak, change, fiddle and modify you person to perfection. No longer do i have to sit in front of my tv making a character on a separate game wishing that my characters nose was slightly different or if the cheeks were defined enough.

Well onto the gameplay. I haven't tried out tournament mode yet and only played one game on exhibition so i can only really talk about career. At the start after loading my character i head to my first few challenges. And i must admit it took me a couple of tries to beat the first player, after that well it just got easy. A bit too easy, rookie and challenger mode were a breeze and to be honest not much fun. A bit repetitive and simple to play. But when it came to joining the junior tour. WOW! Suddenly im overall 34 and im having to play players with an overall of 45-60 whats going on? i thought. This is where it started to get fun. I was struggling to win my service and i still haven't got past the semi's of the easy tournaments. I thought. This is more like it! Well i think that was a bit more of a story so ill give it a bit of a summary to help you understand my meaning.

Graphics-9.5/10 - not the best a game has been but top runner for . a sports game.
Gameplay-8/10 - Career starts a bit too easy and suddenly
. becomes hard. I like a challenge and like to work . for victory like a true tennis player. Play can get a
. bit repetitive though.
Content-9/10- This is stuff the game has that isn't gameplay. Eg the . player creator. Good fun and very detailed.
Music/Soundtrack -7/10 - Good sound track and lots of good songs. . Docked a few points for annoying parts where
. song changes due to change in screen etc.

Overall -8.5/10 - Good fun, a bit repetitive and a real challenge. Best . tennis game out there. Worth Buying!

The game itself is brilliant. graphics realism physics sound are all great. the carear mode is also very good starting off as an ameteaur then advancing all the way to ledgend. the online is good but not great. lags whenenver you find someone with a bad connection but mostly its fine. only other down is that theres is not a huge selection of favourite tennis players in it. theres roddick federer sharapova and some ledgends like borris and borg. but still they could of added a few more like nadal who is only on the ps3 version . but other than that its a great game superior over virtua tennis and smash court.!

There is no pleasing some people. People cry out for a challenging, realistic Tennis sim, and then people slate it for being too challenging. There are two options here. If you want an enjoyable pick up and play arcade game, then buy Virtua. If you want a game that will challenge you, will take time to master and will be enjoyable to play, even after months of use, then buy this. I too, could not hit the ball very well at the start. I decided to play a few tournaments as a pro and start on very easy and make my way up through the harder levels. This gave me a basic knowledge of how the controls worked and also the styles of the different pro's. Once you have done this for a while I would recommend starting the career mode. If you have patience and you want genuinely rewarding gameplay, then this is the game for you. The other day I played a 5 set game against Federer, and it took over 2 hours. First set went to a tie break which I lost, second set went to a tie break which I won, the next I won 6-4, the next I lost 6-3 and I won the final set 7-5. You don't get this sort of realism with any other game.