Classification : G (Xbox360 | PS3 | Wii | DS)
Publisher: 2K Games (Xbox360 | PS3 | Wii | DS)
Developer: PAM Development (Xbox360 | PS3 | Wii | DS)
Genre: N/A
Reviewed on: PS3
Available on: (Xbox360 | PS3 | Wii | DS)
Price per platform: $99.95 (Xbox360 | PS3) $69.95 (Wii | DS)
Release dates: 27/06/08 (Xbox360 | PS3 | Wii | DS)
Score for this review : 7.9 / 10
by : Michael Butler
Somewhere between the hype and hoopla surrounding extreme sports and the saccharine-sweet allure of arcade sports games lies the genre’s fruitful middle ground. Home to games that just focus on their sport without any of the silliness that can infect titles at the far reaches of the spectrum.
Top Spin 3 sits firmly in this territory and it has a purity of focus that’s very reassuring. Top Spin is about as serious as you’d want a tennis game to be, with an extensive create-a-player system, play mechanics that reward forethought, a good eye for tennis, and what promises to be a vibrant online feature-set.
The character creation system allows you to work from templates or completely customise your character, from build and facial features to tattoos, outfits and playing styles. It’s an easy-to-use system and the detailed character models stand up to close scrutiny very well indeed. They also animate smoothly in play – they’re a little doll-like but their movements look natural, clothing and hair are procedurally animated (so they bounce and flutter more or less like the real thing) and the real-world players (a roster of current top players plus a few legends) are all easily recognisable.
Building up your character is also great fun. Stats are improved by playing matches, so once you’ve made a character and been to Top Spin School (training mode), you can get busy with the Career mode. The difficulty curve is well-judged so you should find yourself advancing at a steady rate, from amateur to pro to champion, with your in-game stats improving side-by-side with your real-world skills. Or if you’re impatient, you can skip character creation and just launch yourself into Tournament Mode, where you’ll play in a real-world tournament against a roster of real-world and in-game opponents.
(Online the game promises regularly-updated leaderboards and championships, including a World Tour mode with champions crowned every 15 days but we’ll have to wait until the game’s release to really test it out.)
So how’s the tennis then? It’s really good. If you’ve played any of the earlier games in the series, you’ll find that things have changed a fair bit as developer PAM decided to re-work Top Spin’s controls. Tennis is a highly tactical game and you’ll have to be thinking about the point you’re tying to construct as you play, because the key to hitting the shots you want to hit is to get yourself into position early and time your swing accurately.
To serve you can use the face buttons or the sticks to serve (pulling the right stick back to throw the ball and forward to strike it), and when it’s time to return a ball you press the button for the shot you want, get yourself into position, aim your shot and release the button as the ball bounces. The longer you’ve held the button and the more accurate your timing, the better the shot you make.
When it’s time to make the big play, you can use the triggers to modify your shot further by adding power, risk or both. It’s a great idea (and a series staple) but these shots are too hard to pull off – the timing is quite unforgiving. So instead of making the dramatic, desperate, attempt to hit a winner you’re more likely to play it safe, which is not, we suspect, what the developers had in mind.It really comes down to skill.
Casual gamers looking for a pick-up-and-play tennis game are likely to be disappointed by Top Spin 3. But for those who are willing to invest some time in coming to grips with the game’s controls, there’s a seriously good tennis game here that will deliver a lot of satisfaction.
Taken From : http://gameplayer.com.au
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